10 Trafficked Children Intercepted by Manipur Police at Sekmai

Imphal, Mar 25 : It is apparent that there in no respite in child trafficking in the state of Manipur as 10 more children including three girls were being intercepted Wednesday morning by Sekmai police while traveling in an inter-state bus heading for Guwahati.

All the children except one hailed from Churachandpur district, the single child was from Mizoram, according to police.

It is worth mentioning that a press conference was held Tuesday in the capital mainly to focus on the recent child trafficking cases from the state organized by Impulse, NGO network. It may be recalled that 25 children were reportedly trafficked in June last and 54 boys in January 2010 from Manipur, were trafficked to Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, by some religious institutions in the pretext of providing them good education.

Meanwhile, the ten trafficked children have been handed over to the Child Line of Social Welfare department-Manipur, informed the Sekmai police.

According to police, the incident came to light when they were performing their normal duty of checking the inter-state buses.

They came across the ten children who were traveling themselves with proper tickets for Guwahati. They suspected the children of being trafficked and detained at Sekmai police station, added the police source.

The police informed that when the children were being questioned, they revealed that they were all above 18 years of age.

However, they all seemed to be minors and apparently they were being trained to travel alone by the traffickers, added the police. Much information could not be obtained as the children could hardly speak Manipuri, according to police.

Meanwhile, G. Sheitabati, director, social welfare while appreciating the role of Sekmai police in foiling the attempt of the traffickers stated that the effort of Child Line is fruitful.

She further stated that the Child Line, Manipur had notified the public on January 25 this year, to report immediately to the Child Line if they found any traffickers trafficking children from the state.

via Newmai News Network