Railway security personnel have rescued 26 girls from the clutches of alleged traffickers in the Muzaffarpur-Bandra Awadh Express after a fellow passenger alerted officials with tweets that some girls travelling in the same S5 coach were crying and looking helpless.
Reacting to the tweets “some of the girls are crying and all are feeling unsecure... human trafficking”, Railway security officials in Varanasi and lucknow swung into action and within half an hour of the alert on the social media site started investigating the matter, a Railway spokesperson said.
The GRP at Gorakhpur coordinated with Childline along with the anti-trafficking unit of the police. Two RPF jawans in plain clothes boarded the train at Kaptanganj and escorted the girls to Gorakhpur.
“26 girls were found with two men, aged 22 and 55 years. All of them are from West Champaran in Bihar. The girls were being taken from Narkatikyaganj to Idgah. When questioned, the girls were unable to answer anything convincingly, so they have been handed over to the child welfare committee. The girls are believed to be aged between 10 and 14 years.
“Their parents have been informed and the men have been taken into custody,” a statement from RPF said.
This incident comes days after Chairman Railway Board Ashwani lohani launched an awareness campaign for protection of children coming in contact with Railways.