Incidents in recent months show that Vijayawada is still living up to its notoriety as a major trafficking destination in India. The sale of a 14-year-old girl from Bangladesh and the gang-rape of a 16-year-old girl from West Bengal revealed to us how the flesh trade of Andhra Pradesh is thriving. Then, a few days ago, the Government Railway Police (GRP) and the National Child Labour Project (NCLP) along with some NGOs rescued about 20 minor boys being trafficked to work in a jute mill in Guntur district a few days ago. The victims were malnourished and were living in highly unhygienic conditions, the officials said.
The 14-year-old Bangladeshi girl Sona (name changed) was brought to Vijayawada by a woman, Jasmine, on the pretext of getting her a job and sold to a trafficking gang from Andhra Pradesh, which had a network spread over the neighbouring states. While Jasmine was handing over Sona to the gang at Vijayawada railway station, the girl suspected foul play and escaped.
Sona, a native of Cox’s Bazar district in Bangladesh, was recued and has been lodged in an NGO home in Vijayawada. “We have identified the victim’s family and efforts are being made to send her home,” Women Development and Child Welfare Department officials said.
In the other incident, Naseema (name changed), a 16-year-old girl from West Bengal, was brought here and allegedly gang-raped by 19 persons on the outskirts of the city. A native of Nadia district in West Bengal, Naseema was said to have been scouted by a mediator Pinku and sold to a Mumbai-based flesh trade gang. The prime accused in her gang-rape, E. Rambabu alias Sriramulu, of Visakhapatnam allegedly entered into a deal with the Mumbai gang and brought Naseema to Vijayawada. The gang rented a house at Kanuru under the Penamaluru police station limits and sold her time to customers from Prakasam, Guntur, Visakhapatnam, Vijayawada and other districts. She was repeatedly assaulted for a week.
“The modus operandi of such gangs is that they circulate photographs of trafficked women in the social media. Based on the photographs, a trafficked woman is ‘hired’ by flesh trade operatives in different states. They pay online and brought to the city. She is lodged at a safe placed and hawked to local customers,” said a police officer who is investigating the case.
Police Commissioner D. Gautam Sawang said nine persons involved in the gang-rape of Naseema were arrested and booked under Sections 376 (d), 366 (a) and 343 of the Indian Penal Code, and Sections 3, 4, 5 and 6 of the Prevention of Immoral Trafficking Act and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act 2012. A hunt is on to nab the remaining accused, he said.
Mediators and pimps play a key role in trafficking children and women. In most cases, young girls are lured with the promise of a job, Mr. Sawang said.
Police admit that there is a need to increase vigil at bus and railway stations and on highways to check trafficking in coordination with GRP and other departments.
