Shillong, June 11: The rescue of six teenaged girls taken from the Northeast to brothels in Mumbai has left police and monitoring agencies in the Northeast in a tizzy. The incident has taken place on the eve of an international meeting on anti-trafficking to be held in Shillong on Friday.
According to members of the state chapter of the Action against Trafficking and Sexual Exploitation of Children (Atsec), the girls were found in a ?notorious brothel? called ?Congress house?, situated on Grant Road in Mumbai, by members of the Mumbai International Justice Mission.
According to a report submitted by the Mumbai police, most of these girls were lured into flesh trade by pimps who promised to give them jobs in serials and films.
While three of the six girls rescued last week are from Assam, the rest are from Manipur, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh.
Atsec members in Shillong said while the girl from Arunachal Pradesh was sold to pimps in Mumbai a couple of weeks ago, the other five were in Mumbai for over a year.
The girls will be brought to Shillong for ?rehabilitation? before they are repatriated, the members added.
The incident has once again proved that a flourishing flesh trade continues to operate under the very nose of the police and control agencies set up to prevent trafficking of girls from Northeast to Mumbai and other countries.
Last year, Mumbai police had rescued over 24 girls from the Northeast from Santa Cruz in Mumbai, exposing a major flesh trade network. The Telegraph had carried an exclusive report mentioning some of the frequently used ?trafficking routes? connecting Bangladesh, the northeastern states, Mumbai, West Asia and Thailand.
?Last year, we managed to narrow down on a sex market in Bangkok and other South East Asian countries. This year we are concentrating on strengthening our network,? said Hasina Kharbih, president of the Impulse NGO Network which is also the state chapter of the Atsec.
The Impulse NGO Network was instrumental in assisting the police to crackdown on a gang of traffickers in flesh trade, operating between Shillong and Mumbai.
Kharbih said over the past few years over 400 girls from the Northeast had been trafficked out to Mumbai and other countries. She said ?a strong regional network? would be mooted during the international meeting on anti-trafficking.