File photo used for representational purpose

RAIPUR: Chhattisgarh police have rescued over 70 children from the grip of human trafficking net, who were pushed into forced labour after being lured for attractive payment, comfortable life and were sent to Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Odisha.

There are still more than 300 such minors and women kept in confinement in Goa, Delhi, Mumbai and other states who are not allowed to return home nor are paid at all except for two meals.

The traffickers in Chhattisgarh have become so active from north to south of the state that the rescued children include maximum from Bastar region and from three other districts.

Based on several inputs about large number of children and women from Kondagaon, Narayanpur, Jagdalpur, Kanker, Jashpur, Surajpur and Raigarh being trafficked by local touts to other states on pretext of providing them good jobs and that they were being exploited, Chhattisgarh police had launched an operation under ‘Samvedna Yojana’.

Teams were formed and police of respective states were co-ordinated to nab the traffickers and rescue the victims.

Kondagaon SP Sujeet Kumar told reporters that a large number of people from districts of Bastar division are among those rescued and the operation was on since quite sometime.

“We had received first complaint in September 2018 in Kondagaon when a woman approached police stating that her daughter and many other like her were lured of better payment if they agree to work in Chennai. The girls had gone there and were kept in confinement, they weren’t allowed to return home even if they wanted to and were forced to work even when they fall ill. During investigation, similar complaints were received from Makdi region of Kondagaon, Farasgaon, Kanker and other districts too. Police had zeroed in on local touts Jairam Salam, Umesh Mandavi, Jaitram Netam, Badsai Netam and Ramsai Netam who had transported more than a dozen minors to Hyderabad. A team was sent to Salem in Tamil Nadu and both the accused were arrested,” SP said.

There are 42 minor girls and 28 boys who were rescued from different locations working in extremely unhygienic and poor conditions in juice, paper and rope factories. They were promised for Rs 8000-10000 per month but they would get only few thousands in hand or nothing at all.

The rescued ones are being dispersed to their respective native places from Kondagaon and more teams are being formed to rescue 300 children and women from other states.

TOI in its several reports had highlighted that large number of children from Bastar were trafficked to other states to work in factories under off conditions and were extremely exploited and harassed.

Maoist-dominated Bastar region has been a major hub of child trafficking and children are enslaved not only for domestic work in metro cities but also forced into child labour in chilly picking, thread weaving, brick kilns and poultry farming in places including Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh and Goa.

