Human trafficking racket busted by Dimapur Police

DIMAPUR, APRIL 11 (MExN): Dimapur Police today informed that the District Anti-Human Trafficking Unit (DAHTU) under it has unearthed a major human trafficking racket.  

This comes following the case of two girls from Nagaland state who were rescued and kept in a Shelter Home at Pune. After being rescued, they were repatriated back home, informed a press note from the Additional Deputy Commissioner/PRO, Dimapur Police.  

The Women Police Station, Dimapur was in receipt of information from a shelter home based in Pune regarding the two victims from the state rescued by Pune Police from a brothel. After conducting preliminary enquiries and ascertaining the identities and particulars of the victims, a Suo- Moto case was registered and investigations were initiated.  

The PRO informed that a team from the Women Police Station, Dimapur was also dispatched to Pune and the victims were brought back home on March 21 after necessary repatriation processes were completed.

  Police added that based on the statements given by the victims and the necessary investigations, the DAHTU arrested four persons, who police stated were involved in the trafficking of these victims.  

The arrested persons were identified as Johur Uddin, Jorina Khatoon aka Zina, Saiful Uddin aka John or Rahul Dev and Farukh Uddin aka Farukh or Omar. The four accused persons were arrested from Nagaland as well as the neighboring state of Assam. Police said that they are “found to be involved in other similar cases.”  

Explaining the modus operandi of the accused, the police stated that functioning in an organized network, the traffickers targeted victims by luring them with prospective jobs or abducting them. The victims were supplied to the source through chains of traffickers, it was added.  

The DAHTU, police said, is investigating into the case to identify and rescue more such victims. Meanwhile, the victims have been re-united with their respective families after completion of required formalities.  

This comes after it was recently revealed that according to Nagaland Police source, there were zero records of human trafficking in the state in 2016. This was reportedly stated by the Chairperson of the Nagaland State Commission for Women (NSCW) while speaking at a legal awareness programme on human trafficking organized by the Commission on March 21.  

The NSCW Chairperson had however stressed that these records may be due to people not lodging complaints because of societal compulsions.  

She had stressed that hiding incidents of human trafficking for fear of social stigma or retaliation only enlarges the perpetrators’ trade and earning and put more people into miserable broken lives. The NSCW Chairperson had also highlighted that despite stringent laws and amendment passed from time to time, human trafficking, a global menace, has affected both the poorer and affluent nations. Traffickers, she said, have better network and are well organized than government institutes and “they play with human life like commodity in the market.”  

In 2015 meanwhile the North East region had registered a whopping 250% jump in human trafficking cases as compared to the previous year.  

The region has been a hotbed for human trafficking, with girls, especially from low income families, being lured by traffickers with the promise of employment outside their states.