Nongpoh, Oct 28: A woman missing from the Byrnihat area was traced to Rajasthan after she was subjected to forced marriage by a human trafficking gang.
The case goes back to June 11 when the victim was reported missing. A case was registered at the Nongpoh Women’s Police Station under various sections of the BNS and Immoral Trafficking (Prevention) Act.
During investigations, it was found that the woman was in Rajasthan and managed to escape from confinement. Immediately on receipt of information, she was rescued with the help of Rajasthan Police and brought back to Meghalaya. On examination of the rescued girl, it was learnt that a person from Assam befriended her on Facebook and lured her into travelling to Delhi and Rajasthan for marriage. However, the girl was taken to Rajasthan, sold and married to an unknown person in lieu of Rs 3 lakh.
After a continued effort to unearth the network, police identified the person who befriended the woman as one Rajesh Hinge (31), of Kumarghat in Tripura. He was arrested on October 19 in Guwahati.
A suspected accomplice, Md Khalil Ali (31) of Boko in Assam, was arrested on October 21 in Jalukbari, Guwahati. Further investigations led police to the person behind the human trafficking ring, believed to be one Monika (first name only provided) of Nawalgarh in Rajasthan. She was arrested on Sunday from Kamakhya Railway Station in Guwahati.
All the accused persons are being thoroughly interrogated and police say that they have sold at least five girls from Boko, Assam, and one girl from Tripura in the last two years. The investigation is continuing and more arrests are likely, police added.
A common modus operandi was involved, i.e., the target is identified and befriended on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, etc and, after chats and calls for some time, they are lured into going to other places like Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan, etc on the pretext of marriage, tourism, etc and then sold off.
Police warned parents to educate their children to be more aware and inform their guardians if any such incident occurs. The same modus operandi may be used to commit other crimes like cyber fraud, UPI fraud, blackmail, etc. The public should not install any unknown application or click any suspicious link because this could lead to their mobile phones and computers becoming compromised.
