West Bengal police nabs human trafficker from Allahabad
As per the preliminary investigations, the police said, “Neetu has admitted that she was a sex worker. She had left the work a couple of years ago but was still in touch with the pimps. It is through her same connections that she sold off the minor girl from West Bengal.”
A team of West Bengal police arrested an alleged human trafficker Neetu Yadav (40), mother of two, from a rented house near Naini police station Allahabad on Wednesday morning.
The police went for Neetu in a missing minor girl’s case, who was allegedly trafficked by her.
Upendra Kumar Mishra, member of the West Bengal police team, told HT, “A case of a missing 14-year-old girl was registered in South 24 Pargana, about 50 kilometres from Kolkata in January. The girl was lured by her lover, who was an adult, and brought to Allahabad where she was sold off to Neetu. Neetu kept the girl in her house for about a fortnight and sold her in Mumbai. The girl was then taken to Pune. The girl was rescued from West Bengal on June 18.”
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“We had got a clue that the missing girl is in Pune, so our team went there. However, we failed to find her. Later, we came to know that the girl was in her village with a Pune boy and it was from there that we rescued her,” Mishra said.
It was only after the girl’s rescue that the police came to know about Neetu.
As per the preliminary investigations, the police said, “Neetu has admitted that she was a sex worker. She had left the work a couple of years ago but was still in touch with the pimps. It is through her same connections that she sold off the minor girl from West Bengal.”
While Neetu has been arrested and is being taken to West Bengal by the police team, the boy who lured the minor girl and brought her to Allahabad is still absconding.
“We are hopeful that we would reach the boy soon and arrest him,” said the police.
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Rishi Kant of Shakti Vahini that works against human trafficking said, “Only about a week ago, six girls of West Bengal were rescued from a brothel in Agra. The girls were brought by a pimp as tourists to visit Taj Mahal. They were sold off in Agra.”
Rishi Kant said that the trend of bringing in girls as tourists to UP has been on the rise. “The exercise was part of west Bengal Police’s Swayam Siddha initiative which aims at tracking the traffickers. Earlier the operations were limited to rescue but now the police is targeting traffickers,” said Rishi Kant, who is also a member of the Swayam Siddha advisory committee.