One of the rescued minors at Bhubaneswar railway station. Picture by Ashwinee Pati

Bhubaneswar, Nov. 29: The Railway Protection Force (RPF) today rescued five minor girls and two minor boys from the Baripada-Bhubaneswar Intercity Express at the Bhubaneswar railway station. The children were allegedly being trafficked to Madurai.

However, two persons, who were allegedly trying to take this group to Madurai, fled when the raid took place.

The children belong to Tihidi area of Bhadrak district. Police suspect that the two persons who fled may have pushed the girls into the flesh trade on the pretext of finding them jobs.

Police said they got an anonymous call about some minor girls being brought to Bhubaneswar by the Baripada-Bhubaneswar Intercity Express before carrying on to Madurai.

“Consisting of women officers and constables in plain clothes, our team raided the train as soon as it reached the Bhubaneswar station around 11am,” said an RPF official.

Police brought fthe minors to the RPF police station.

Aged between 13 and 17, the girls were mostly illiterate and came from poor families. The two rescued youths were identified as Dilip Majhi and Saroj Behera.

On questioning, the girls said they were going to Madurai with a man called Babu Rout and his brother to work at a vehicle-manufacturing factory.

Rout, who also hails from the Tihidi area, had been working in Madurai.

Inspector in-charge of RPF Varun Behera said the girls had no idea what sort of place Madurai was and what kind of work they would be engaged in there.

Same was the case with the two boys, who had been told that they would be engaged at a nuts and bolts manufacturing factory.

“We can understand boys being employed in such a factory, but what would the girls have done there? We suspect that there were other motives behind taking them to Madurai,” said Behera.

Police said they would contact the family members of the group and send them home. The boys and girls also told the police that they were facing financial problems in the wake of recent floods, which destroyed their crops.

The traffickers had promised them a salary of Rs 2,200 per month.

Behera said the police would talk to the labour and employment officials of Bhadrak through their Bhubaneswar counterparts “We have also launched a hunt to arrest the two persons who were trying to take these girls to Madurai. Once they are arrested, we will get to know what exactly the group was supposed to do there,” he said.