Jharkhand girls rescued in Delhi

RANCHI: A team from the Jharkhand criminal investigation department rescued 84 people, including 48 from the state, from Delhi’s Sukurpur area late on Tuesday night. Those rescued, who included 28 minors, were reportedly trafficked from eastern states like Odisha, Assam and West Bengal. This is part of the Jharkhand CID team’s month-long endevour to track down trafficking agencies in Delhi, which work in the garb of domestic help recruitment cells. The team has already identified 20 such agencies.

“Of the 20 agencies, we raided three. We also raided four random agencies and rescued 84 persons in five hours,” said Baidyanath, member of Diya Seva Sansthan, an NGO. The rescued children will be taken to Child Welfare Committee (CWC), Delhi. “We will first take a transit from CWC (and) then bring the children home. The team will stay in Delhi for a few more days and raid other places,” said Baidyanath.

Of the 84 rescued, 28 children are from West Bengal, four from Chhattisgarh, three from Assam and one from Odisha. Seventeen-year-old Sukhmani, who is from Gumla, was recruited by Mahendra Placement Agency in Delhi. “I was brought here one year ago and they said I would be given a lot of money if I work as domestic help. During my one-year stay, I was not given any money and even beaten by my employees,” said Sukhmani. Julie Kumari, another teenager from Gumla, who was rescued from Gayatri Placement Agency, said, “I have been working in Delhi for the past three years and was never allowed to contact my family. They did not even pay me. The placement agency keeps all the money.”

The Jharkhand CID had sent the team – which included a DSP, two inspectors and one officer from the labour department – to Delhi on December 23 to identify recruitment cells which promise lucrative offers to jobseekers mainly from the hinterland.

“Members of NGOs Diya Seva Sansthan and Shakti Vahini, Delhi, and Supreme Court Advocate Ravi Kant coordinated with our team there,” said Anurag Gupta, IG CID.