| Tuesday, June 23, 2009 |
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Probe into child trafficking
By Nireesh @ 12:41 PM :: 246 Views ::
0 Comments ::  :: Asia
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Senapati police today ordered an inquiry into the alleged trafficking of children after 25 of them were rescued by a team of Calcutta police from a train at Howrah station yesterday while they were being taken to Andhra Pradesh.
The children, all from Senapati district and aged between six and 14 years, are lodged in a home run by Childline, an NGO.
The superintendent of police, Senapati, Nishit K. Ujwal, said he had ordered an inquiry and would take action after getting the report.
The SP was informed about the rescue of the children by West Bengal police.
A. Atikho, A. Loli and Daniel Athiko — the three persons who claimed to be pastors and were escorting the children ostensibly to provide them with good education and a decent upbringing, were in the custody of the West Bengal police.
A police officer in Calcutta said efforts were on to find out whether they had paid the children’s families.
“On getting inform- ation from Calcutta Childline about the rescue, we passed it on to our units in Senapati district. The children will be brought back here in the next few days,” an official of Imphal Childline here said.
Goaded by abject pov- erty, parents send their children to orphanages outside the state.
The lure of better job opportunities has often forced young girls of Manipur to move out of the state, with several of them landing in trouble, he said.
Nearly 110 children, including minor girls who have been rescued from various parts of the country since January 2008, were either found in illegal orphanages or intercepted while being trafficked.
“In all the cases, parents or guardians handed their wards over to agents after they were promised that their children would be given good education free of cost elsewhere. After winning the confidence of the parents, the traffickers take the children to illegal orphanages. This is done for quick money,” the official said.
Dimapur police rescued 17 girls and a boy while they were being trafficked to Chennai on September 16 last year. They were sent back to Manipur. Twenty-two Manipuri children, inclu- ding two girls, were res- cued from an illegal orphanage in Chennai in August last year.
Trafficking continues despite the setting up of anti- trafficking cells in all the nine districts of Manipur last October to check vehicles along Imphal-Dimapur Road, Imphal-Jiribam Road and at Imphal airport.
Ujwal said the cell in Senapati district was, however, functioning properly.
The cell was set up following reports of a large number of children being taken out of Manipur to various destinations, including Singapore and Malaysia.
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