Taking a serious note of the spike in the human trafficking incidents being reported from the holy city, SSP Haridwar Krishna Kumar has directed the human trafficking cell to carry out relentless raids on the suspected locations. The latest incident was reported from Tehri where the police team rescued two minors and two women victims of the trafficking racket during a raid on a house in a colony where the displaced people are residing. It is learnt that five of the accused, including two women -all from Bihar- have been arrested while two are on the run. Police said they are conducting a man hunt to nab the absconders.
On Monday, on receiving information of the human trafficking racket operating in the colony of the displaced people in Tehri, the anti-human trafficking team along with SOG Roorkee raided a house from where the accused had been allegedly carrying out such activities for the past many years. Hailing from Sitamarhi and Badayun in Bihar, the accused were allegedly involved in luring distressed women and their children into the trafficking net. It is learnt that many from Punjab and Haryana had been sold earlier by the accused.
Revealing the case, SSP Krishna Kumar said on Monday that they kept on making progress on the case for the past few days being fed with information given by the whistle blowers. “Things capped on Monday when we raided a house in the colony of the displaced in Tehri. This is from where the racket has been operating for the past many years. One Soni, 20, hailing from Jalalpur village in Bihar and another Rakiba from Majra village under Bhagwanpur block of Haridwar were rescued along with two minors. We are trying to locate their family members.”
The five accused-all from Bihar- were identified as Ramdass and his wife Janarsi Devi from Sitamadhi, Asha and Sita from Suman Nagar, and Waris Ali from Sahasban, Badayun. Mangeram and Nandlal are the two still absconding, added police.
Notably, the principal accused Sita had long experiences in the human trafficking. She confessed during interrogation that she had carried out five sex rackets before she had started this one. Police said that the gang used to operate in a professional manner. A visiting card of an advocate was recovered from them by the police. “ Their modus operandi was to target women and their children who were being subjected to domestic violence and to lure them into the racket while promising them with jobs. After they got hold of their victims they used to sell the mothers and the children separately at different rates. One of the accused revealed while being grilled that he had sold a woman in Khanpur village recently while her child had been sold later to another person from a different state. The children were sold for anything between Rs 90,000 to Rs one lakh,” informed one of the officers probing the case.