Pankaj Borthakur, Guwahati (Apr 1): It’s startling! A joint investigation by the Assam police and their Delhi counterpart has brought to light the involvement of as many as 36 Delhi-based placement agencies in trafficking Assam girls and children to Haryana, Punjab, Mumbai and several other metropolitan cities.
After the submission of a list of 36 placement agencies to the Delhi police, the Assam police’s CID has already rescued many Assam girls from the placement agencies located at Rajouri Garden, Raghubir Nagar, Uttam Nagar, Kalkaji and several other areas in New Delhi.
“The investigation is going on. Already many girls have been rescued from the Delhi-based traffickers,” said Assam ADG (CID) Mukesh Sahai.
Sources from the Delhi police said that on Sunday its personnel rescued a West Bengal girl from the clutch of a gang of traffickers at Chirag Delhi where many Assam girls were also found.
Trafficking was going on there for the past few months, the sources said. An Assam police official, who had prepared the list of D elhi-based traffickers, said that an accused trafficker, Munna Choudhury, had even cremated two Assam girls in Delhi after their mysterious death, without informing the Assam police. Police reports available with Seven Sisters Post said that over 278 girls and children were taken from Assam by Munna for placement in Delhi.
“We found these records in his placement diaries recovered from an enclave in Rajouri Garden. Many of the girls, who came to Delhi under his aegis, are yet to be rescued,” said AK Bania, an Assam police official working in New Delhi.
Most of the trafficked girls and children were from the tea gardens of Udalguri, Sonitpur, Bongaigaon and many other char areas of lower Assam. They were taken to Delhi with the help of local agents. Cases of trafficking are less in the upper Assam districts like Dibrugarh, Sivasagar and Jorhat, said a top Assam police official.
A top official of the state police said they have already urged the Delhi government to formulate some strict guidelines for the placement agencies operating in the capital state to follow. Many of the agencies, he said, have been running women trafficking network under the camouflage of placement service.
“While the trafficked children are placed as domestic helps and in a number of fish packaging industries, the beautiful girls are forced to marry some Haryanvi or Punjabi men. A lot of such examples are with us,” said Rishi Kant, a child rights activist of a New Delhi-based NGO, Shakti Vahini. Several instances of selling Assam girls in some suburban brothels in Delhi and Mumbai have come to light, the police said.
“We have been sheltering seven girls in our city shelter home. They were rescued from Mumbai, Delhi and some other metropolitan cities since January this year. All of them were victims of false marriage,” said Kaberi Sharma, assistant general secretary of a Guwahatibased NGO, Global Organisation for Life Development (GOLD).
Original Story: 36 Delhi-based placement firms on police radar
