Human trafficking in West Bengal
[Representational image]Creative Commons

Mobile numbers registered under the name of an 18-year-old girl helped Mathurapur police in West Bengal to track down a human trafficking accused. Farah Ali Gayen alias Rakesh Halder, 21, used to lure girls over the phone, only to sell them at brothels, India today report read.

In the tribal areas of West Bengal, young women usually walked to mobile recharge shops for adding credit to their numbers. Each time a girl visited, Gayen would pay 100 or 200 rupees and 'buy' the number from the shopkeeper.

The police officer said that after getting the woman's phone number, Gayen would call up his boss and describe the features of the women. This, to see if the women had the vital stats they were looking for. Further, the cops said that Gayen used to supply girls from Kolkata to many brothels in Delhi.

For this, Gayen had even assigned young men, below the age of 21, to look out for girls who visited mobile recharge shops only to get their contact numbers. He used to pay them anywhere between 500 and 1500 rupees depending on how good looking the girls were. Gayen was paid 50,000 rupees per girl by the main trafficker, said the report.

Gayen nefarious were busted when an 18-year-old kidnapped girl, who had been carrying her mobile phone called her father saying that she was being sold to a brothel in Agra. On tracing her mobile phone location, police were able to rescue six other girls involved in this.

The rescued girl exposed Gayen following which the police conducted raids and went on to identify Gayen's associate Faraq from Mathurapur.

As many as 12 traffickers, who were nabbed by the police were identified as recharge shop employees.