With the Bangladesh link cropping up, is there more to the Hyderabad human trafficking case

New Delhi, Aug 21: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has filed a supplementary chargesheet in connection with the Hyderabad human trafficking case against two persons, Mohammad Abdul Salam and his wife Shiuli Khatun.

While Salam is a resident of Hyderabad, his wife Khatun hails from Bangladesh. The NIA has accused both of trafficking young Bangladeshi girls. Both have also been accused of illegally crossing the Indo-Bangladesh border for running a prostitution racket in Hyderabad and in nearby places.

The case was registered in 2019 after six Bangladeshi girls were rescued from a brothel being run by Mohammad Yousuf Khan, Bithi Begum and Sojib Malik. After the NIA took over the case, the agency arrested Rahul Amin Dhali.

All the accused were charged under the provisions of the Prevention of Immoral Traffic Act for their involvement in illegal trafficking of Bangladeshi women to Hyderabad and their sexual exploitation.

Khan and Begum were running a prostitution racket with women trafficked from Bangladesh at premises near Kandikal gate, Baji Nagar, Uppuguda, Hyderabad. Based on credible information, Chatrinaka Police of Hyderabad City had searched the premises and arrested all three accused persons.

The NIA said that the accused persons were trafficking poor and young Bangladeshi girls into India through a well-organised network of agents in Bangladesh and India. The girls were falsely promised lucrative jobs and were subsequently forced into prostitution.

This is not the first time that such human trafficking racket was busted in Hyderabad. In 2015, following the arrest of Pakistan national Mohammad Nasir in Hyderabad, it had come to light that the Harkat-ul Jihadi Islami (HuJI) was also involved in a similar racket spanning between Bangladesh and Hyderabad.

It was found that one Abdul Jabbar also part of this network had entered India from Bangladesh through Malda in West Bengal. It was learnt that apart from setting up terror modules, these persons were involved in a massive human trafficking racket.

It was found that these persons had greased the palms of several officials and prepared fake documents, which were in turn used to send the girls brought in from Bangladesh into India to other countries. It was found that they managed to get at least 15 persons out of the country.

In the latest case, the NIA after taking over the case rescued three more girls in addition to the six earlier rescued by the Hyderabad police. During the raids, the NIA recovered several incriminating articles and documents.

These included multiple identity documents of trafficked girls, contraceptive pills, mobile phones and large number of diaries and registers containing names and mobile numbers of various brothel agents to whom the trafficked girls were sent for sexual exploitation on commission basis.