Three minors were rescued and a child trafficker was arrested from Tinsukia Railway Station by a joint police team of Chabua–Lahowal on Thursday.
The child trafficker has been identified as Bijoy Patnaik (40) of Kadomoni area, Chabua.
A suo motu case was registered at Lahowal Police Station. Patnaik has been charged under Sections 137(2) (kidnapping) and 143(5) (trafficking of persons) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and has been remanded to judicial custody.
“We have arrested the accused from Tinsukia Railway Station and rescued three minors from his clutches. He was going to sell them outside Assam. We have taken him into custody and started an investigation,” said a police official.
He added, “We received information from our sources that Bijoy was with three minors and was planning to sell them outside the state. We launched a joint operation and successfully nabbed him from Tinsukia Railway Station.”
“We had received complaints about him, and for many years we had been searching for him. Finally, he was arrested. A case, No. 140/25 under Sections 137(2)/143(5) BNS, was registered against the accused,” he said.
The minor children were sent to a Juvenile Justice Home and, after completing all departmental procedures, were handed over to their parents.
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Sources said Patnaik was involved in trafficking several children and girls, smuggling them across the border to Arunachal Pradesh for forced labour.
“Bijoy Patnaik was associated with a child trafficking ring, and he manipulated poor tea garden families by promising jobs for their children. Most of the time, the children were forced into labour in other states,” said a source.
Preliminary investigations suggest Patnaik is a key figure in a longstanding trafficking network, allegedly responsible for ferrying numerous women and minors from across Assam to other states for financial gain. Police had been pursuing him for a long time.
Children from tea garden communities remain vulnerable, and middlemen involved in trafficking take advantage of poverty to sell them to other states.
“We organise awareness programmes among tea garden communities, but some people are brainwashed by middlemen who lure them and take away their children, eventually selling them to other states. Child trafficking is an organised crime, and many people are associated with this network,” said Assam Chah Mazdoor Sangh (ACMS) leader Nabin Keot.
Tinsukia Police on Wednesday arrested the mastermind of a child trafficking racket, Peter Sona, from the Phillobari area of Tinsukia.
He is suspected of trafficking at least half a dozen children from tea gardens to neighbouring Arunachal Pradesh.
Also read | Assam: Child-trafficking mastermind arrested in Tinsukia