trafficked 5,000 tribal kids;

It is estimated that every tribal hamlet in the naxal-affected Simdega-Gumla-Khunti region of Jharkhand has at least one missing child. All of them trafficked as unpaid domestic helps or sex slaves across India that has earned it the notorious tag of being the country's unofficial 'slavery belt'. dna travelled to remote villages meeting rescued tribal slaves and parents whose kids have never returned. Behind the tales of horror, is a network of human traffickers whose way of functioning the police are yet to decipher.

The Jharkhand Police nabbed Panna Lal Mahto in October 2014 from a house in Delhi's Shakurpur locality. He is one of the 35 kingpins who operate a heinous network supplying Delhi homes with tribal kids who work unpaid for years. dna studied witness accounts, hand-written police notes, confession statements and documents recovered from Mahto's residence in Delhi to deconstruct his modus-operandi and of others like him.

Mahto states that he started off in 2003 with four girls from his village of Ganoliya who he placed as domestic helps for a sum of Rs 1,000 per month in Delhi. He earned his first commission of Rs 8,000 for the job. After 11 months, he sent them back instructing each girl to bring back three more from their neighbouring villages to Delhi within a month. "I also got in touch with people at churches and villagers who were willing to become my agents for little money," says Mahto in his confession

Trafficking kingpin, wife held in Delhi

Ranchi: Trafficking kingpin Panna Lal and his wife Sunita Devi were arrested in Delhi on Sunday morning and sent to Tihar jail.

A joint team of Jharkhand Police and Delhi Police (crime branch) arrested Lal and his wife and produced them in a court in Delhi. Later, they were sent to Tihar jail for the night.

Aradhana Singh, the anti-human trafficking unit (AHTU) head, who was leading the Jharkhand Police in Delhi, told TOI over phone, "We have managed to arrest Panna Lal and his wife Sunita Devi. Both were wanted in several trafficking cases registered in Jharkhand."

Police will produce the duo in the court again on Monday to seek a transit remand and bring them to Jharkhand.

Panna's name surfaced following the arrest of another wanted human trafficker, Baba Bamdev, who was nabbed in Khunti in August this year. During interrogation, he had confessed to having strong links with Panna. He had also said he and Panna used to provide 'placement' to girls of Jharkhand in Delhi.

Abused domestic help says she is being pressurised

The victim, who was rescued from Vasant Kunj, says she was forced to sign documents

The victim’s family at Atgama village in Sahibganj district, Jharkhand.File Photo: Manob Chowdhury

Seven months after Phul Murmu (name changed), who used to work as a domestic help at Vasant Kunj, was rescued with signs of torture and physical abuse, she has complaint to the police of being pressured to sign documents against her will by two men. She made the complaint to the district police at Sahibganj in Jharkhand on Friday, where her family lives.

“On Thursday, two men came to my house at Atgama village. I had left with my mother to help in her work, lifting sand. They forced my sister to bring them to the river bed where we were working and asked me to sign documents, which I could not read. When I refused, they offered me money and then threatened me. They forced me to sign them,” Phul Murmu told The Hindu over the phone from Sahibganj, where she has been living in a hostel run by NGO Mahila Samakhya. “The girl made a complaint of being forced to sign documents by two men. We are investigating the matter,” said Sahibganj’s Superintendent of Police A.B. Ram.

Tribal minor girl from Jharkhand rescued in Delhi

The rescued girl’s parents.

In the most recent of recurring cases of minors trafficked from rural areas to work as domestic workers in the city, a 14-year old Adivasi girl from Jharkhand was rescued from Kashmiri Gate on May 5 after she left her employer's house in Chandigarh. Despite a Supreme Court order last January followed by a Home Ministry directive in July 2013 that complaints of all missing children be immediately registered as FIRs, Jharkhand police or Delhi police are yet to do this. 

The girl Ritika Mundu (name changed) told the CWC that she had been brought to Delhi by a woman Phaguni Mundu from her village in Khunti in Jharkhand last month. She had been taken to Chandigarh to work as domestic worker where she was beaten regularly and not allowed to contact her family. She narrated that her employers had thrown her out of their house on May 4 after which she caught a bus to Delhi. She was spotted crying and in distress by vendors near ISBT who then alerted the Kashmiri Gate police chowki, who in turn informed the NGO Shakti Vahini. 

Ritika Mundu, who has been sent to a children's shelter home, was carrying an Aadhaar card which revealed her father Kunwar Mundu's name and her address in Hetgaon village in Khunti's Murhu block. Her father works as a farm labourer.