6 members of trafficking gang held
Rapid Action Battalion has arrested six members of a gang that has trafficked around 100 young women to India after luring them with various promises on social media.
The gang mainly targeted girls and women from poor and lower middle-income families and promised them jobs in films, or employment in markets, superstores and beauty parlours in India, said Rab.
Once they took the victims to the neighbouring country, they confined the young women to "safe homes" where the gang members tortured them physically and mentally and forced them into prostitution under threat of death, said Rab-4 Commanding Officer Mozammel Haque.
The gang have trafficked around 100 girls and women to India in the last few years, claimed Rab.
A Rab team raided Darussalam area in the capital's Mirpur late on Wednesday night and made the arrests after a victim's mother sought their help to rescue her daughter from the gang's clutches.
The gang had earlier taken the victim to Darussalam to traffic her to India.
The arrestees are: leader of the gang Sekander Hossain of Dhaka, Asaduzzaman alias Akash of Jeshore, Noor Mohammad alias Alif of Narsingdi, Bulbuli Begum of Jashore, Rubi Akhter and Koli Akhter of Netrakona.
Rab rescued the victim and recovered some Aadhaar cards, the identification card issued by the Indian government, PAN (permanent account number) cards, mobile phones and fake travel documents.
Rab in a press release said the filing of a case by the victim was under process.
Primary interrogations revealed that Rubi and Koli were once trafficked to India and sold to a dance bar where they remained confined for four years, Rab said in the press release.
They managed to flee back to Bangladesh, but again tried to go to India with the help of fugitive accused Sohag alias Sagar, who had asked them to lure a victim for the trafficking ring.
They then lured the victim who was rescued on Wednesday night.
Rab said apart from the arrestees, the gang has five to seven more accomplices in Bangladesh while several others including Dipak, Khoka alias Kangkai, Maria and Tamanna are in India.
The gang used to traffic victims through the Benapole border at night with fake documents.
Sekander, the leader of the gang, once worked as a make-up artist in Bangladesh Film Development Corporation.
Sohag had also worked as a make-up artist in the film industry earlier, but left the job and got involved in human trafficking, said the Rab release.
Comments