Jupinderjit Singh

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, June 7

From bride trafficking in Haryana and Punjab to use of trafficked children for drugs peddling, especially ‘chitta’, in border districts of Himachal Pradesh, the menace of human trafficking has gripped North India, said experts drawn from eight northern states at a consultation meet by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) here today.

Some of the trafficking gangs have become so organised that they employ minors in factories or restaurants using fake Aadhaar cards, police experts of Haryana and Himachal Pradesh revealed in their presentation at the conference.

The meet, called for better co-ordination and response system, was convened in collaboration with the Ministry of Home Affairs. The consultation was the fourth in a series of five stakeholder meetings planned by the UNODC to strengthen anti-trafficking coordination in the country. The deliberations brought together stakeholders from Chandigarh, Delhi, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab and Rajasthan, said Samarth Pathak, Communication Officer, UNODC.

Rohit Malpani, SP with the Himachal Pradesh Police, said fake Aadhaar cards have been used to get employment for children trafficked from Jharkhand, Odisha, West Bengal and other states to industrial township of Baddi. He raised the police suspect that some trafficked children were first lured into drug addiction in Una, Kangra and Kullu districts and later used as peddlers for supplying ‘chitta’. “Some foreigners were shuttling between Goa and Hiamchal Pradesh regularly, raising doubts about the drug trade,” he said. He also listed many steps taken by the police to check the menace.

Chandan Barman, Project Officer, UNODC, described the patterns emerging from North India on trafficking routes, scale of the problem and concern about it worldwide.

Hanif Qureshi, IG (Law and Order), Haryana, recounted cases of bride trafficking by organised gangs in some parts of Haryana. Narrating success stories of the police in tracing the missing children, he called for better co-ordination and synergy between the states and setting up of more anti-trafficking units.

Om Prakash Mishra, DIG, Chandigarh, shared his experience of rescuing trafficked women from GB road brothels in New Delhi. Dr SD Singh, IG, J&K, revealed 42 cases of trafficking were listed in the past 10 years but the graph has declined now with only one case registered last year and none so far.