Dancer in human trafficking case fears family will be dishonored

Sushma Shirke is a lovely woman. The 25-year-old India native’s waist-length black hair and almond-shaped eyes lend her an exotic look, but it’s not her beauty that customers pay to see. It’s her dancing.

“I am performing as a real good dancer,” Shirke said. “People come to appreciate my talent and not my body.”

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Andria Simmons / asimmons@ajc.com

These are the rules, written in Hindi, that four female and two male entertainers from India were forced to follow while they were being held captive at a home at 677 Sunfield Drive, Lilburn police say.

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Andria Simmons / asimmons@ajc.com

Lilburn police say this house at 677 Sunfield Drive is where four female and two male entertainers from India were being kept under lock and key.

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Shirke is one of six entertainers that were allegedly recruited from India with promises of profits - tips - from their dancing at the bar and restaurant, only to be paid slave wages and have every movement carefully guarded once they arrived in Georgia on Nov. 20.

Four men have been arrested on multiple counts of human trafficking for their involvement; Shifiqat Muhammad Ali, 26, of Birmingham, Vijay Kamal Bannerjee, 26, of Lilburn, Govino K. Vishwa, of Lilburn, and Farrukh Khan, of Hoover, Ala.

Christopher Palazzola, a defense attorney representing Vishwa and Bannerjee, said Friday “I believe they are totally innocent of any wrongdoing.”

Police have also charged a fifth man, 29-year-old Victor Varaghese, however he has not been arrested yet.

Shirke is worried the arrest of her bosses will shame her parents and brother in Mumbai, India, even though she and the other dancers didn’t participate in prostitution or stripping. The two male performers played in a band while the six women performed traditional folk and Bollywood-style dancing between eight and 14 hours a day, seven days a week at Mehfil Bar, Grill & Entertainment at 1200 Rockbridge Road near Norcross.

The doors to the five-bedroom house where the entertainers lived in Lilburn were always dead-bolted from the inside by guards who stayed in the sparsely furnished house with them, Shirke said. She said the girls, who did not have the key to the door, were not permitted to go anywhere without an escort.

The eight performers had signed a contract before they left India, stating they would surrender their passports and be confined to their home when they weren’t working, Shirke said.

“They said it was for our safety, and we believed them,” Shirke said.

For now, the performers are still staying in the house without keepers and planning to return to India when their visas expire in April.

Shirke says coming to America was a chance to make twice the pay she would have earned doing the same work in India. Her only complaints about the business arrangement is that a male friend she calls “Sam” was banned from seeing her, and that she was paid only about half of the promised wages.

The man whom the club operators banned from seeing Shirke is also the person who brought the case to light. Police say he climbed onto the roof of the house and snuck into a bedroom window on Jan. 10 to see Shirke. When the guards discovered the unwelcome visitor, they dragged him outside.

Shirke’s friend then called police. Lilburn Police Investigator Matt Lake said this is the first case of human trafficking ever to surface in the city. He said the suspects are operating as a corporation called Jass Enterprise Inc., and not just individuals.

“These girls get traded through different corporations all the time,” Lake said. “Some of them have kids back in India, and they put up with whatever they have to put up with to make money. We’re just really happy this is out of our community.”

Lake said he is working with a private organization to provide alternate housing for the women, because they are about to be evicted from the house on Sunfield Drive. Their bosses were more than two months behind on the rent and utility payments, Lake said.

Shirke said she hopes the bar reopens soon, because she wants to return to work.

“I just want freedom for my personal life,” Shirke said.