Guwahati, Sept. 1: Uncertainty was writ large on 15-year-old Dimple’s (name changed) face as she alighted from Lokamanya Tilak Express at Guwahati railway station at 12.30 this afternoon.

Dimple and the 35 other girls, almost of the same age, who followed her in a queue had been all rescued from a factory in Mumbai.

“I don’t know what I will do at home. I want to study but my father cannot afford it. I had gone to Mumbai for work with an uncle as I had left studies and there was no work at our place,” Dimple told The Telegraph as a CID officer asked them to hold hands and form a queue in front of the Government Railway Police station on platform number 1.

Dimple had to drop out of school after Class V, as her father, a daily wager in a tea garden at Dhekiajuli in Sonitpur district, could not afford to educate her further. “It will be good if we get some work in our area and study at the same time,” she said.

After their names were registered, the 36 girls and four boys, 15-16 years of age, who were brought from Mumbai by a team of Assam CID, social welfare department officials and members of My Home India, a Mumbai-based NGO, were taken to a shelter home in two buses. They will be produced before a child welfare committee before being sent to their homes in Sonitpur, Baksa, Udalguri and Kamrup districts.

All the children are school dropouts and from poor families, mostly living in tea gardens. “My father earns only Rs 250 as daily wage and so he wants us to work,” one of the girls from Dhekiajuli said.

Of the 36 girls rescued today, 29 are from Dhekiajuli and Biswanath Chariali in Sonitpur district — areas with many tea gardens.

“This is a serious issue in our area. There are some agents who target children of poor parents. They take them out for work but many kids land in difficult situations like this,” said Abdul Jalil, a sub-inspector of Tezpur police station who accompanied the children from Mumbai.

Sunil Deodhar, founder of My Home India, who facilitated the return of the children, said from Mumbai that strict action should be taken against the agents.

“There are agents who bring young girls, women and children to Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore. The problem will remain unless the Assam government and the police arrest the agents and provide financial support to families of such children,” he said.

In a release issued this evening, chief minister Tarun Gogoi expressed concern over trafficking of children and women in the state. He called for proper mapping of the areas where such incidents were taking place and measures to check the crime.