Int’l human trafficking racket: Over 200 women from Bangladesh, Myanmar trafficked

The key accused in an international human trafficking racket, who was arrested by India's Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) from Tripura, was allegedly involved in trafficking of over 200 women and children from Myanmar and Bangladesh to India on assurance of marriage and providing employment, said senior police officials on Tuesday.

The officials said the accused identified as Arshad Miya Bappan, a resident of Seppahjala, Tripura, was arrested from his hideout on Monday on the revelation of his close aide Mohd Rafiq.

Rafiq was arrested in Lucknow on Saturday (February 26). He had come here to meet some of the members of the racket lodged in district jail here since their arrest in July and August last year.

A senior ATS official said Bappan will be brought to Lucknow in connection with the case registered with the Uttar Pradesh (UP) ATS, on transit remand, and will be questioned further to extract more information about his network and people involved in purchasing trafficked women and children from Myanmar and Bangladesh.

He said Bappan and his accomplices are also suspected of sending women and children to countries like Malaysia and pushing them into the flesh trade.

An ATS official privy to the investigation said the information extracted from the accused so far suggests that Bappan and his crime partner, a Bangladeshi national Noor Mohammed, have trafficked over 200 women and children from Myanmar and Bangladesh and have sold them in different states after preparing their fake Indian identities. He said Bappan and others also used to harass these women and children sexually and mentally before selling them to other gangs involved in human trafficking and flesh trade.

The official said Bappan's crime partner Noor Mohammed was arrested along with two Myanmar nationals Rehmatullah and Shabi-ur-Rehman alias Shabiullah from the Delhi-bound Brahmputra train in Ghaziabad on 27 July, 2021.

He said the police had also rescued two women, aged 16 and 18, from Myanmar, from them. Later on their revelation one more key accused Mohd Ismail, the resident of Mangdu, Myanmar, was arrested from Hyderabad in Telangana, he added.