Gangtok, Aug 11: A team of Assam Police on Tuesday rescued 13 more minors and women from Sikkim illegally engaged in domestic works, two weeks after 42 such youths were rescued last month.
The youth were illegally trafficked to the neighbouring hill state by a racket run by one named Krishna Yogi, currently in Assam Police custody, in which they would lure them by falsely offering better employment opportunities.
“During our interrogation of Krishna Yogi, he told us 13 more children were still serving in various households. Based on his inputs we searched the houses and rescued them,” Lob Kumar Deka, Deputy SP who led the rescuing team said.
Among the rescued youth, seven are women while the rest are male, he said.
All the 55 youths — 42 rescued in July 23 and 13 on Tuesday — have been recovered mostly from the Sikkim capital city Gangtok and the areas along Sikkim – West Bengal border — Sintam and Ranipool in East Sikkim and Namchi in South Sikkim.
According to Assam Police, all the youth belong to economically backward area in Chirang district of western Assam’s Bodoland Territorial Region along the Indo-Bhutan border.
“The accused Yogi took advantage of the economic condition of the family members in those areas and trafficked them promising good money to the family,” Deka said.
Trafficking increased due to COVID-19 induced lockdowns (sub head)
This is the second instance in which crime rackets have targeted Assam’s economically backward sections that has been hit worst by the ongoing lockdowns and various restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic since March last year.
Several cases of human organ trafficking from various parts of the state had popped up in police investigation last month in which people from this section had fallen victim to a human organ trafficking racket that illegally transplanted their kidney in West Bengal and did not pay them in full after.
“The human trafficking of these youth had also started after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic,” Deka told journalists at Sikkim.
Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma earlier had said that the children will be first handed over to the Child Welfare Committee that will decide if they will be sent to institutional custody, shelter homes or return them back to their parents based on individual cases.
