RANCHI:
The lure of fast cash has made human trafficking a lucrative business
and traffickers from Jharkhand, all of whom come from remote villages,
operating in northern states, especially the capital, laugh all the way
to the bank within years of joining the network.
The arrest of at least four prominent traffickers in the past two years and their statements to investigating officers reveal the easy money trail. Pannalal Mahato, Baba Bamdev, Akash Rathi and the recently arrested Lata Lakda own properties worth crores in Delhi, police said. Lakda, who went to Delhi in 2000 to work as a domestic help, told police that she had made crores by trafficking 1,500-2,000 girls from Khunti. She got into the network in 2003 and was arrested from Ranchi's Chanho block on June 22.
The arrest of at least four prominent traffickers in the past two years and their statements to investigating officers reveal the easy money trail. Pannalal Mahato, Baba Bamdev, Akash Rathi and the recently arrested Lata Lakda own properties worth crores in Delhi, police said. Lakda, who went to Delhi in 2000 to work as a domestic help, told police that she had made crores by trafficking 1,500-2,000 girls from Khunti. She got into the network in 2003 and was arrested from Ranchi's Chanho block on June 22.
Aradhna Singh of the Anti-Human Trafficking Unit in
Khunti, who was part of the team that nabbed Lakda, said, "When we
entered her house, she hurriedly removed her gold jewellery and gave it
to her relatives. She has a three-bedroom flat in Delhi's Shakurpur
area. Her husband Arun, who works as a digger in a coal mine, has a
shopping complex built on 32-decimal land in Chanho in his name."
Trafficking kingpin Pannalal from Khunti, who was arrested in October
2014 and confessed to have sold 20,000 girls to 250 placement agencies
in Delhi, owns a G+5 apartment building at Shakurpur where he ran his
agency. He also owns eight acres and 60 acres of land at Argora and
Booty More in Ranchi, 10 kattha land in Khunti in the name of his wife
Sunita Devi and 15 acres at Tajnapur near Khunti, also in his wife's
name, police said.
Gayatri Devi, Pannalal's sister-in-law, who
was arrested a few days after the kingpin was caught, is from Khunti and
has trafficked about 4,000 girls, according to Diya Seva Sansthan, a
Ranchi-based NGO.
Baidnath Kumar, a member of Diya Seva
Sansthan, raided her office in 2012. "When we raided her office we found
documents of over 4,000 girls who were trafficked." Khunti police said
Gayatri had a three-storeyed building at Shakurpur in Delhi and owned
one acre at Torpa in Khunti.
Baba Bamdev, another trafficking
kingpin from Jharkhand who was arrested in August 2014, had confessed to
have trafficked 8,000 girls from Jharkhand and has a house in Madhukam
area of Ranchi, around 20 kattha land in Simdega district and a G+3
apartment building in Delhi's Punjabi Bagh area where he ran his
placement centre named Bhagwan Birsa Welfare Society.
Ravindra
Rathi alias Akash Rathi, who was arrested from Delhi in 2013 and is
serving term in Tihar Jail, belongs to a village in Ranchi's Tupudana
and owns 25 kattha land in Namkom, a two-storeyed apartment at Nangoli
in the Capital and 15 acres is registered in the name of Merry
Phulkeria, Rathi's wife who lives in Tupudana.
Keenu Munda, who
is lodged in Rohini Jail in Delhi, and his wife Lambo Devi, who was
arrested earlier this month, own a three-storey building at Kanjhawala
in Delhi and the police say they have more land in Jharkhand and Delhi.
Social activist Baidnath Kumar had filed a PIL in the Jharkhand high
court on June 15 regarding confiscation of properties of these
traffickers. "I have filed a PIL so that the properties of these
traffickers are attached by the ED (Enforcement Directorate)," he said.
During the 4th Anti-Trafficking conclave in Ranchi on March 28, chief
minister Raghubar Das had said, "A law will be formulated to confiscate
the properties of traffickers that would be developed into training and
rehabilitation centres for trafficking victims."