Backward slash inserted ahead of forward slash in adapter

I have a REST to ECC synchronous scenario.

I am sending a url in the response message from ECC

this is the url http://host:port/RESTAdapter/DFT/Employee/100001

the last can change accordingly

However the adapter sends it like this:

http:\/\/host:port\/RESTAdapter\/DFT\/Employee\/100001

A backward slash is inserted ahead of every forward slash in the url