Only two days after a human trafficking racket was busted in Puri, the Baripada police on Saturday night cracked yet another such racket and rescued as many as 20 minor girls.
Acting on a tipoff, the Baripada Town police led by IIC Alok Ranjan Ray raided a bus and rescued the girls while they were being taken away to Kolkata.
As per preliminary investigations, the girls belong to Bhadrak, Jagatsinghpur and Puri districts, said police sources.
The girls had been working for a Kolkata based prawn factory earlier. Even though they came back to work at a factory in Baleswar being dissatisfied over the remuneration, they were moving back to West Bengal through some agents, the sources added.
“They were being taken to work in a prawn factory in West Bengal. We have detained three women in connection with the case and are interrogating them. Further investigation is on,” IIC Ray told reporters on Sunday.
All the rescued girls were handed over to the District Child Welfare Committee (CWC).