Bihar and Bengal police rescued two girls from a brothel in North Dinajpur district on Friday in a joint operation assisted by NGOs working against human trafficking.

The rescue operation was initiated after Jagran Kalyan Bharti, an NGO, had alerted the authorities that a minor who had been missing from Bihar since April 6 last year had been traced to a brothel at Champabag in Islampur.

Acting on the tip-off, a team of the Bihar police travelled to Islampur and joined hands with the Bengal police, Shakti Vahini — a child rights organisation — and the Bhavna Association for People Upliftment (BAPU) to conduct a raid on the brothel.

“They rescued the minor who disclosed that another girl from Bihar was also being confined to the brothel. A subsequent search of the premises led to the rescue of the second victim,” said a source.

Rishi Kant, the founder of Shakti Vahini, said the girls hail from Sheikhpura and Gopalganj districts in Bihar.

“Traffickers lured the victims with false promises of employment before transporting them to Islampur and forcing them into sexual exploitation,” he said.

The police have launched a wider investigation to identify the individuals involved in the trafficking network and determine whether more victims were brought to the area.

“The investigation will continue until the entire trafficking chain is uncovered and all those responsible are brought to justice,” said a source in the Bihar police.

A senior police officer based in North Dinajpur said the case had once again drawn attention to an emerging trafficking corridor through north Bengal.

“We are working to identify those who recruited the victims, transported them across state borders and operated the brothel,” the officer said.

Kant alleged that Islampur had increasingly emerged as a hub where minor girls from Bihar and the northeastern states were trafficked and pushed into commercial sexual exploitation.

“We have urged the law enforcement agencies to conduct regular search and rescue operations in vulnerable areas to disrupt trafficking networks and prevent more children from falling victim,” he said.