Hyderabad: Task force sleuths, Hyderabad, busted an international human trafficking-cum-prostitution racket on Wednesday and arrested 14 persons, including seven Bangladesh nationals and a minor. They also rescued two victims, both minor girls aged below 15 years. According to cops, the accused were trafficking victims from Bangladesh via West Bengal to Hyderabad where they operated the prostitution racket.
The accused minor boy allegedly assisted the organisers, police said.
On a tip-off, the south zone task force sleuths raided two different locations at Khairatabad and Chaderghat with assistance from local police, unravelling the racket that had been in operation for the past few months.
Among the organisers, Ritoy Islam and Md Rony Khan, both Bangladesh nationals, and Jalil Sardar and Rajat Mandal from West Bengal, have a criminal past, said A Srinivasa Rao, additional DCP, Hyderabad task force.
Police said local agents Kamarul Shaik and Azarul Shaik from West Bengal, along with their associates, were trafficking Bangladeshi women for prostitution in Hyderabad, Bengaluru, and other cities.
“After identifying girls from financially weak families through their agents in Bangladesh, they made them cross the border to temporary shelters in West Bengal. There, they obtained Indian ID proofs for them and sent them to different places,” said a police official.
The gang charged up to Rs 20,000 for each ‘candidate’ to migrate from Bangladesh to India and provide ID proofs. They trafficked the victims by promising them jobs in garment stores, etc., in different parts of the country and shifted them accordingly. After they arrived in the designated city, they were forced into prostitution, said an official.
Two separate cases were registered at Chaderghat and Khairatabad police stations. The organisers were sent to judicial remand, and the victims were sent to a care home.
