Members of a students’ union in Assam’s Sonitpur district rescued 24 boys and girls, lured by a trio with job offers in West Bengal’s Siliguri area late Monday. The rescued minors and the three alleged traffickers, including a woman, were handed over to the police.
“The three had taken advantage of the poverty of the minors who were from a tea estate and had tried to lure them away with jobs in some obscure factories. We caught them in the Thelamara area on Monday night,” a leader of the All Adivasi Students’ Association of Assam said.
All the 24 were from Dhendai Tea Estate near Rangapara town in Sonitpur district.
While the minors were sent back to their families, the three alleged traffickers were handed over to the police at Missamari.
“The woman, Mazeda Begum, is from Missamari area and the two others — Nayanmani Boro and Umesh Keot — are from Rangapara,” a district police officer said, adding that they were trying to extract information from the trio on a possibly bigger human trafficking racket.