Trafficking Menace in Jharkhand Villages
DHAV Panchayat is the adopted village of the BJP Member of Parliament from Koderma Ravindra Rai. It is not surprising that there is no sign of so-called development in this area as PM Modi’s scheme of adopting a village for five years has proved to be a farce and the latter’s own adopted village in Varanasi district also has not seen any progress. More shocking is the silence observed by Koderma MP after a 12-year-old girl was trafficked by two agents, and the police instead of taking any action against the traffickers is pressurising the aggrieved family to withdraw the complaint.
On October 7 two trafficking agents allegedly took advantage of poverty of Bhutuk Bhuiyan and Gita Devi, parents of a 12-year-old girl Sivaran and convinced them to “get her married.” This family doesn’t have any source of income and they live in a hut in the forest. The agents Munna Devi and Kunti Devi hurriedly took the family to Nawada where they ‘arranged for a Sindur ceremony’ in an isolated place and allegedly sent the girl with a man to Jodhpur. Later the family realised they have been fooled and the girl has been sold to someone. When this incident was reported to the police, the thana in-charge of Dhav refused even to listen to the complainants. Later it emerged that the local police is well aware of and hand-in-glove with this trafficking racket. When the aggrieved family filed a case in the thana and recorded a statement under section 164, the local BJP MP Ravindra Rai instead of taking action, declared that the parents of the girl have taken money from the agents. Taking a cue from this statement by the MP, the local thana incharge threatened the parents with criminal prosecution if they failed to withdraw the case.
The All India Progressive Women’s Association (AIPWA) has demanded from the administration to take concrete measures to bring back the trafficked girl without delay. An AIPWA team led by Gita Mandal met the family of the girl after a protest held in Koderma in which arrests of trafficking gang members and dismissal of thana incharge was also demanded by AIPWA.
