Trio arrested for trafficking minor girls in 'police car'

Deganga: Three persons, including a woman, were arrested for trafficking two minor girls in North 24-Parganas’ Deganga on Sunday afternoon. The trio had put up police stickers in the vehicle to steer clear any suspicion of the locals.
It was around 2.30pm when some locals in Hamadhama noticed a girl trying to get off a running car. Though the police sticker on the Hyundai Accent car misled them temporarily, they grew suspicious seeing the girl’s desperate attempt to escape.Some youths in motor cycle then chased the car and intercepted it near Hamadhama Bazaar.
They were taken aback seeing two scared girls seated at the rear with a woman while a man sat beside the driver. When the trio failed to prove that they were from the police, cops were informed. A team from Deganga police station led by officer-in-charge Goutam Mitra reached the spot and took all the five to the police station.
During interrogation, police found that the two girls, Class-XI students of a local school, were lured by the woman identified as Mehroon Khatun, who hails from Kumar Ali village - the same locality where the two girls live. She was whisking away the girls on the pretext of providing them job in a call centre in Salt Lake. Her aides were identified as Shekih Imran and Zahir Babbar.
“Both the girls come from a very poor background. They readily agreed when the woman known to them promised them job. But they grew suspicious when they saw the ‘police’ sticker on the car. After their requests to free them fell on deaf ears, they pressed the panic button and tried to escape from the running car,” said a senior police officer of North 24-Parganas.
According to police, the two girls were being trafficked for flesh trade. Police hope to unearth a trafficking racket of which the trio was a part.
During interrogation, cops found the woman lured the girls, both Class-XI students, with call centre jobs in Salt Lake.