The Government Railway Police rescued 10 women and two youths, who were being trafficked to Kerala, from a train at Lumding in central Assam’s Hojai district in the early morning of Sunday.
GRP officials said the rescued people hailing from upper Assam’s Tinsukia district were being taken to western coastal state of Kerala in the pretext of giving jobs.
A woman has been arrested in connection with the case. A case has been registered against the woman at the GRP station, Guwahati.
“Based on inputs, GRP and Hojai police jointly rescued them at Lumding. The police team took them to Guwahati GRP station, where a woman has been arrested under relevant acts,” Barun Purkayastha, Hojai superintendent of police, said.
On July 16, an Assam police team led by Purkayastha rescued nine girls from a human trafficking racket in Kerala. They were also taken to Kerala by luring them of jobs and marriage. Police arrested two persons in this connection.
The SP said the modus operandi of such traffickers is usually to trap the women by false promise of jobs and marriage.
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“That was a big success for the police department. And today, the police department saved 10 women again,” the SP said.
It is pertinent to mention that a total of 122 people, mostly women and children, have been rescued by the Assam police since June 24. Out of 122, nine were rescued from Kerala on July 16 and 71 were rescued by the police from different places of Assam while they were being taken to different western coastal states. Rest 42, of which 40 were minors, were rescued by the police from Sikkim on July 21.
“After seeing all the incidents of human trafficking since June, it has come to light that the traffickers’ target is to send the women or men to the western coastal states – Gujarat, Maharashtra and Kerala, bounded by Arabian sea in the pretext of giving jobs. In few of the incidents, it has come to light that the youths were promised to give jobs in fish packaging factory,” a senior police officer said.
The officer further said that poverty and lack of education are the two prime reasons for which these people become easily trapped in such trafficking gang. “Moreover, the pandemic has adversely affected these people resulting in no earning since the pandemic broke out. Traffickers tried to take the advantage of the situation and gave an attempt to traffic them to these places. But, police department has foiled their attempts,” the officer said.
Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Friday said that the state government will adopt a state policy for rehabilitation of the children rescued from trafficking rackets to secure their future.
Sarma also made it clear that state government is committed to eliminate the human trafficking from Assam, as more operations would be launched to bust the human trafficking network and deal with the persons involved in the crime very sternly.