The Female Detective on a Daring Mission to Rescue India’s Trafficked Women

Nearly 200 girls are kidnapped in India every single day, many sold into sex work. The authorities too often look the other way. So Nirmala Walter takes things into her own hands.

Photos by Smita Sharma | Story edited by Alessio Perrone and Brendan Spiegel

On a loud evening veiled ​​with polluted air, the bazaars of central Delhi’s red-light district swarm with passersby. It’s April 2021, and the rush of scooters, bicycles, fruit and vegetable carts, and mooing stray cows turns wide Garstin Bastion Road — which hosts around 100 brothels — into a bottleneck. Dozens of chirping young men huddle near the narrow, dimly lit staircase that leads to the entry of “Kotha 64,” an establishment housed in an old three-story building with cracks running up the brickwork and white paint flaking off the facade. They ogle the girls and women who peer from windows and tiptoe on balconies, reciprocating with flying kisses. 

At around 9 p.m., Nirmala B Walter, a petite 46-year-old woman with eyelashes slanting down her round, fair-skinned face, covered with a black handkerchief to avoid recognition, moves past the crowds and approaches the brothel’s staircase. As she and her team o…