Cops: Delhi placement agencies trafficking girls with Maoists’ help

A THREE-MEMBER NGO TEAM HAD RECENTLY VISITED JHARKHAND AND FOUND LINKS BETWEEN DELHI-BASED PLACEMENT AGENCIES AND PLFI GROUPS

RANCHI: Jharkhand police suspect banned left wing extremist outfits that are active in several disricts of the state of trafficking girls to metro cities with the help of placement agencies in Delhi.

The police force in the east Indian state has also zeroed down on two such outfits — the CPI (Maosists) and the People’s Liberation Front of India (PLFI) — after receiving vital information from intelligence agenices. They have initiated an inquiry and identified at least 20 placement agencies involved in the racket.

Police said young girls freuquently went missing from Maoist-hit districts of Khunti and Gumla. While some of them are believed to have migrated voultarily, others — especially the vulnerable ones from very poor tribal families — are lured with baits or forcibly taken.

Khunti police superintendent Anis Gupta said his department inititated an individual probe into the matter after receiving alerts from intelligence agenices.”We found the information to be true,” Gupta said.

Leaders of the extremist outfits denied the involvement. Deenbandhu, the committee secretary of the CPI (Maoist) in the Bihar-Jharkhand-North Chhattisgarh area said: “It is propaganda cooked by the police to defame us. We oppose migration and all kinds of displacement. It’s the work of capitalist forces, not us.”

Sampat Mina, inspector general of the Jharkhand CID, said: “We are yet to receive any official information on this; however, we will look into the matter.”

Delhi-based NGOs working against human trafficking confirm that agencies supplying Jharkhand girls to work as maids are aplenty in Punjabi Bagh area of the national capital. “We have also found out that they have contacts with the banned outfits in Jharkhand and seek their help in supplying children to households and factories in the NCR,” Rishi Kant, founder member of Shakti Vahini, an NGO that has to date rescued over 100 Jharkhand girls in Delhi.

A three-member team of the NGO had recently visited Jharkhand and found links between some placement agencies in Punjabi Bagh area and PLFI groups.

People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) admits that Maoists had been involved in picking up children from villages in Jharkhand. However, the PUCL has no confirmation or complaint regarding the involvement of banned rebel outfits in trafficking children to Delhi. “We are yet to receive any complaints regarding their involvement in human trafficking,” said Nishant Akhilesh, president, PUCL Jharkhand.

Earlier this month, 11 minors, all in their early teens, were rescued as they were allegedly being herded to a Maoist training camp in Saranda forests. A Maoist, Motra Chaki alias Samuel, who was taking the children to the camp, was arrested.