6 held in India's Telangana for trafficking; 2 Bangladesh nationals among rescued

India's Telangan police on Friday busted an inter-country human trafficking racket and arrested six persons. The police rescued a 21-year-old woman Bangladeshi women and her 15-year-old sister, who were forced into flesh trade by the accused, police said.

Disclosing this to reporters, Rachakonda police commissioner Mahesh Bhagwat said the accused were identified as: Satish Rajak (25), a native of Jharkhand and staying at Mumbai, his wife Brishti Khatun (22), a Bangladesh national migrated to West Bengal but living with her husband in Mumbai, Deepak Chand (27) from Jaipur, Suresh Balusonavne (36) from Satara in Maharashtra, Aslam Chand Patel (37) from Satara and Arun Ramchandra Jadhav (56) from Satara.

"Two others – Kumavath Prakash (30) from Rajasthan and Priyanka from West Bengal -- are absconding," Bhagwat said.

The police seized a Maruti Swift car, seven mobile phones and fake identify cards from the accused. They booked a case under Section 420 (cheating), 376 (2) (rape by more than one person), 370 (A) (trafficking for sexual exploitation), 366 –A and B (inducing a minor into sex), 467 (forgery of documents), 471 (fraudulent use of documents), 109 (offering bribe to public servant) and 114 (abetting the crime), besides Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (Pocso) Act and other sections of Prevention of Immoral Traffic Act (PITA).

Bhagwat said the Uppal police registered a case on 11 July, based on the complaint lodged by one of the two victims. According to the complaint, the woman, a Bangladesh national, had approached her relative Bristi a few months ago for some job because of her financial problems. Bristi assured that she and her 15-year-old younger sister would be provided jobs in India.

"The two sisters travelled from Bangladesh to Kolkata and from there, they were brought to Uppal on the outskirts of Hyderabad, where they were forced into flesh trade. The elder sister managed to come out of the house and complained with the police," Bhagwat said.

Based on the information provided by her, the anti-human traffic unit team of Rachakonda police along with the Uppal police conducted a joint operation and apprehended the accused from different states, he said.

Explaining the modus operandi of the accused, Bhagwat said Deepak Chand and Satish Rajak had been resorting to human tracking for the last few years and running flesh trade by trapping young girls and women from different states.

"They were using online dating websites and uploading attractive pictures of women and girls to attract the clients from different parts of the country. They would arrange flight, train and bus tickets to transport the women to their clients. They would carry out their monetary transactions only through net-banking applications," he said.

A few months ago, Satish Rajak, with the help of his wife Brishti, brought the two sisters from Bangladesh promising them to provide jobs at a beauty parlour. They prepared fake Aadhar cards of the victims and brought them to Hyderabad.

"With the help of a woman trafficker at Attapur area in Hyderabad, the sisters were forced into prostitution. They were later taken to Nalasopara in Maharashtra for a few days and brought back to Hyderabad, where they were lodged in an independent house in Uppal. When the accused were taking the minor sister to Karad in Maharashtra for a client, the elder sister quarreled with them," the commissioner said.

On 11 July, the elder sister came out of the house on the pretext of going to market and lodged a complaint with the Uppal police. "We immediately registered the case and started an investigation. Our teams went to Karad and rescued the minor girl and apprehended all the accused one after the other," Bhagwat added.