The Goa Police on Wednesday arrested four members of a family after it emerged that they had kept a woman confined in a room in a house in Candolim for the past 15 years, PTI reported. The woman was rescued from the North Goa house after an NGO alerted the police.

Officers said the woman, in her 50s, was locked in the room allegedly by her brothers and their wives for her abnormal behaviour. “The woman was locked in a dark room of her parents’ house, currently occupied by her two brothers and their family members,” a senior police officer told PTI. “She was being served food and water through a window.”

A team comprising policewomen raided the house in Candolim on Tuesday evening after receiving information from NGO Bailancho Saad. The police said the NGO came to know about the woman after a person claiming to have seen her sent them an email.

“Four persons in the house – two brothers and their wives – were placed under arrest last night after they were questioned,” Superintendent of Police (Crime Branch) Karthik Kashyap said, adding that they were granted bail by a judicial magistrate’s court.