The railway police in Odisha rescued 14 Adivasi children from Jharkhand who were allegedly being trafficked to Tamil Nadu, reported PTI. A team of the Rourkela Government Railway Police and the Railway Protection Force also arrested the suspected trafficker, who was identified as A Selva Raju, said the police on Wednesday.
Inspector In-Charge of Rourkela GRP police station Simon Lakra said the team acted on a tip and raided the Tata-Alleppey Express upon its arrival in Rourkela on Tuesday night. The police arrested 53-year-old Raju from Tamil Nadu. He works as a labour supply contractor and had brought the children from Kareikela in Jharkhand’s West Singhbhum district.
The rescued children included four boys and 10 girls. They were being taken to Tamil Nadu to be engaged in factories and houses, said the police.
Last month, the Government Railway Police in Uttar Pradesh rescued 26 minor girls from the Muzaffarpur-Bandra Awadh Express near Gorakhpur after a passenger used Twitter to alert them. The Railway Police at Gorakhpur coordinated with the organisation Childline and the anti-trafficking unit of the police and arrested two men for allegedly trafficking the girls, all of whom belonged to West Champaran in Bihar.
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