Bihar: 2 held for child trafficking; 6 minors rescued from railway station

Those held said that the children, aged between 12 and 14 years, were being taken to Jodhpur to work as labourers in a construction company

Sasaram: Two men were arrested and six children from Bihar’s Rohtas district, who were allegedly being trafficked for child labour to Rajasthan, were rescued by a joint team of the railway protection force (RPF) and government railway police (GRP) at Bihar’s Dehri-on-Sone railway station on Thursday evening.

The police raided the station reportedly before the accused could board the Howrah-Jodhpur Superfast Express with the children. (Representative photo)

Police have identified the accused as Rajkumar Sharma (40) of Jharkhand’s Mali village and his local agent Satyendra Kumar (27) from Khairwan Khurd village.

“A case under child trafficking and child labour was registered against the traffickers at the GRP police station at Dehri-on-Sone,” Rail superintendent of police (SP) in Patna, Amritendu Shekhar Thakur, said.

Those arrested told the police that the tribal children, aged between 12 and 14 years and residents of Rohtas’s Nauhatta area, were being taken to Jodhpur to work as labourers in a construction company, a police officer said.

The police team raided the station around 7:30pm, reportedly before the accused could board the Howrah-Jodhpur Superfast Express with the children. “The accused and the children were at the eastern corner of platform number 2/3,” the officer said.

The children said that Sharma had given ₹1,000 to their parents, assuring them of a lucrative income after the children started working in the company.

The rescued children were handed over to the Child Helpline authority to be safely reunited with their families.