Jalpaiguri, Dec. 13: Traffickers could be hiding in the garb of non-government or welfare organisations to gain easy access to girls in remote areas, a police officer said today.

B.N. Ramesh, the deputy inspector-general, Jalpaiguri range, voiced his apprehension at a workshop organised by Calcutta-based NGO Women’s Interlink Foundation.

Started in 1990, the foundation works with anti-trafficking networks and has a short-stay home for rescued women at Madhyamgram in North 24-Parganas. It has recently set up a similar facility here.

“We ought to be more alert,” Ramesh said.

“Racketeers might be running fake NGOs. Several such fake organisations are working across the country. In this part of the state, which is both a transit point and ground from where victims are picked up, this can be a style that racketeers might adopt.”

Every NGO working in the region is under the police scanner, Ramesh said. “We have opened an NGO desk in the intelligence wing of our department. Officers have been told to keep an eye on the activities of these organisations.”

He also came down heavily on social workers who act professionally rather than with compassion and sympathy towards victims. “These so-called professional social workers are as dangerous as professional blood donors.”

The foundation chairper- son, Aloka Mitra, thanked Ramesh for his plainspeak.