BETTIAH: An 18-year-old girl from an economically disadvantaged family escaped the dragnet of an allegedly organised human trafficking racket by reaching out to senior police officers in Bettiah. However, her petition to the Mahila Thana points to organised rackets in trafficking of girls from poor families. "The girl is safe. We are looking into the matter closely," Bettiah SP Upendra Nath Verma told this newspaper on Saturday.
The details of the girl's application is further buttressed by two audio clips (both accessed by this newspaper) that unfurl a sinister criminal network allegedly enticing poor families in places like Bettiah in north Bihar in an operation purportedly running out of Ghazipur in eastern UP.
The Bettiah girl, in her written petition, says that two women (a mother-daughter duo) from her neighbouring mohalla visited her mother with an enticement of lakhs of rupees. "They were unknown to my family...alluring lakhs, they asked my mother to hand me over," her petition reads, adding, "the women said they would take me elsewhere outside and contract my marriage. They said they are sending three more girls. But first they wanted to click pictures," the petition alleges.
"My mother fell to the lure and the two women clicked pictures of my body's different parts from various angles. They asked us not to tell my father and brother," the girl says, adding, "Another man and woman are with them in this work and the way money is being spoken about, they all seem to belong to a gang involved in buying and selling girls."
In petition dated August 4, the girl further says that those people are planning to take her somewhere in a Scorpio. She then told her brother whose number had earlier been given to the two women by her mother. Her brother soon received and recorded two successive calls by a man, identifying himself as Phuna, and a woman.
The brother was asked to click and share a current picture of the girl with a placard in her hand depicting the date. The brother parried, saying that the girl was visiting her sister. "You have a big mobile. Click and send by WhatsApp. Tomorrow, we have to take her in the afternoon...a Scorpio has been arranged. The checker has already come and been paid Rs 4.5 lakh. Speak to the checker."
The checker came on line; "Mai baba bol raha hoon...you'll get so much money that even if you spend Rs 50,000 a day, your money will not diminish. Yesterday only, a girl's work was done in Ghazipur for Rs 27 crore. Each man got three to four lakhs."
The girl rushed and met SDPO Mukul Parimal Pandey after allegedly getting a cold response at the Mahila police station. The SP intervened and the teen-aged brave heart evaded the dragnet.
