Girls rescued

Pothashang News Service: Imphal, August 6, 2019: The Manipur Alliance for Child Rights (MACR) in partnership with CRY (Child Rights and You)  have thanked Manipur Police and all its member partner who took different roles and succeeded in rescue of three young girls hailing from Moreh, Tengnoupal District, Manipur.

Chandel MACR partner informed that three girls, two of them were sisters of 16 and 19 years of age and the other 16 years from Moreh town were missing since early morning of Agust 3 from their respective houses.

After confirming the missing report by the MACR HQ, an alert was sounded and a special task force was formed which immediately contacted the officer-in-charge of Imphal West to alert the anti-human trafficking unit stationed at the Imphal airport.

 A missing report was made by the parents of the two siblings at Moreh Police station at 10:30 am with the help of MACR members. One of the constables at Moreh check post informed that they had seen the girls heading for Imphal. Thoubal Police was also alerted so that it could intercept the girls on the way.

Imphal West police informed that around 12:30 pm one of the girls were rescued from the booking counter at the airport and the other two from North AOC bus ticket counter. They were then handed over to Special Juvenile Police Unit of Singjamei Police station and kept at Child Friendly Police station, Lamphel under the supervision of superintendent of police, Imphal West Police.

Out of the three recued girls, the 19 years old girl was planning to go to Delhi as someone whom she befriended through Facebook had offered her in getting auditions for a TV serial.

Her younger sister who too wanted to follow her sister to work in the TV serial along with her friend who was married did not want to stay with her husband who was very senior to her. The two minor girls planned their travel by bus till Dimapur (Nagaland) and take the train for Delhi and the elder girl was going by flight hoping to meet the two as soon as they reach Delhi, said a press statement released by MCAR on Tuesday.

The Moreh Police along with Child Line Thoubal arrived at Imphal and meet with MACR team at Child Friendly Police Station Lamphel and gave them counselling, the children. In the evening around 7 pm they were released and handed over to Moreh Police personals, accompanied by the parents of the sisters, and the husband and mother the third girl who had also come down to Imphal. The girls were later accommodated at the Ujjwala Home, Moreh and processed to be produced at Child Welfare Committee, Chandel, after the hearing, the CWC passed an order and handed over the children to the respective families, it added.

MACR is looking into two angles from this incidence, whether it is a simple case of runway from home for pursuing better economical future or is it a big racked of Cyber criminals trapping young girls on Social Media with false promise and exploiting their innocence. This need to be further investigated by the concern Police official handling the case so that other children would not be trapped in a similar way, the release said.

Looking to the past incidence of trafficking there is a urgent need to adopt the draft ‘Plan of Action for Combating Child Trafficking in the state of Manipur’ which was submitted by the MCPCR to the department of social welfare comprising preventive approached, rescue protocols, rehabilitation of survivors, and coordination and convergence of all the line department and adopt the Draft ‘State policy for children 2018” by the state Cabinet at the earliest, both the documents were prepared by MACR in consultation with CRY as it will help to resolve various child rights issues in the state of Manipur, it added.

The incident has proven beyond doubts that the Manipur Police has once again proven its outstanding capacity to carry out  the rescue operation of the three children as and when calls for, so swiftly, despite pre-engaged with their various assignments in coordination with various agencies working in the field of child rights, MACR said.