Interstate human trafficking racket busted, 5 boys rescued in Uttarakhand

DEHRADUN: A major interstate human trafficking racket has been busted by the Haridwar police with the arrest of three persons involved in the operation and the recovery of five children in the age group of three years to six months. 

According to the police, the gang members lifted infants as their family members slept mainly from the platform of the Haridwar railway station, later selling them to people in Ghaziabad, Noida, Delhi and Haryana for anything between Rs 2 lakh to Rs 5 lakh per child. 

The attention of the Haridwar police was caught by the similar modus operandi of a gang involved in targeting kids at railway stations. On September 4 last year, Mahoba (UP) resident Baldev Prasad told GRP that his children were stolen one night from the Haridwar station. On June 2 this year, the son of Bulandshahr resident Sunil Kumar was stolen in a similar fashion. This was followed on August 3 and September 3 by the snatching away of children belonging to one Dharampal of Amroha and Murli Saini from Bijnore. Again, the site of the crimes were railway stations. 

"Following all this, we constituted a joint team of the GRP and SOG to crack the cases," SSP Haridwar Sadanand Date told TOI. Working on the clues, the team quickly arrested four persons, including a woman, from the Jwalapur railway station on Friday. 

The arrested have been identified as Muzaffarpur resident Krishnaveer, his wife Rekha, Jagmohan, a Dehradun resident, and Balwinder Singh, who is from the Yamuna Nagar district of Haryana. 

Giving details of the modus operandi of the gang, Date said, "They targeted families that had children and were visibly tired from long distances of travel. The gang members slept on the platform alongside their targets and fled with unsuspecting children the first opportunity they got.

Out of the five children rescued on Friday, three are from Haridwar. Efforts are being made to trace the identity of the two others. "We are contacting people who have registered FIR in connection with their missing child or children. Soon, we hope to ascertain the identity of the two kids," Date added. "Generally, these criminals sold infants to people who did not have a child. Efforts are on to find out how many children they have lifted till now and what is their status." 

Lauding the efforts of the joint team, DGP B S Sidhu announced a cash prize of Rs 10,000 even as DIG Range Amit Sinha declared a reward of Rs 5,000 and SSP Haridwar Rs 2,500.