Bangalore:
The rescue of two minor girls from a Muscat brothel has exposed the existence of a human trafficking syndicate in Bangalore. But what is more shocking is that the city police are doing nothing about it, despite alerts from the Criminal Investigation Department (CID).
The Muscat police had raided a brothel and rescued many girls from India including two minor girls from Bangalore on a tip-off from the Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs (MOIA).
After the formalities, the victims were handed over to the ministry, who in turn referred the case to the Anti-Human Trafficking Squad (AHTS) of CID.
Upon enquiry, the victims told the CID that they belonged to the lower middle class families and were lured by a group of men and women who promised to get them decent jobs abroad.
They helped the girls to get passports and then to get to Muscat without informing their
parents. Soon after landing in Muscat, the girls were thrown in a brothel. The victims said that they met around 20 Indian girls from various parts of the country.
The victims from Harinagar and Anchepalya were reported missing on November 26, 2008 and February 1, 2007 respectively. The girls were between 14 and 17 years.
MOIA found out that they had been taken to Muscat by trafficking agents. The Muscat police raided a brothel in July 2010, and rescued many girls. These two were among them," said Malini Krishnamurthy, DIGP and nodal officer AHTS, CID.
The girls were then handed over to Indian Embassy in Muscat and then deported to India. Later, the girls were sent to their parents. After the MOIA letter reached state police, the AHTS swung into action, traced the girls, and recorded their statements and filed a case against the accused in Subrahmanyapura and Bidadi police stations, where the girls belong.
"Ironically though, even though the AHTS filed cases in local police stations in Bangalore and Ramanagar on trafficking charges, the local police could not arrest the accused," said a source. The accused are Nafeesa Banu and Sail Kumar in the Subrahmanyapura case and Jyota, Sail Kumar, Saina and Fayaz in the Bidadi case.
It may be recalled that the state home department had organised an interstate seminar on human trafficking where counterparts from Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu participated and expressed cooperation to investigate such human trafficking cases. "When it comes to act on such cases, the city police are mum," said Krishnamurthy.