NEW DELHI : The Delhi Police, in a joint operation with the Jammu and Kashmir Police, busted a human trafficking racket that allegedly pushed several children into bonded domestic labour in Srinagar over two years, officers said on Wednesday.
Police said the probe into a case of two children, a 15-year-old girl and a 13-year-old girl, who were neighbours and went missing from Bhalswa Dairy in 2024, led them to Srinagar, from where the girls were rescued in June. “One of the girls managed to contact a person she knew who further informed police,” an officer said.
Their statements to the Child Welfare Committee revealed they had been lured from the Old Delhi Railway Station and forced to work as domestic helps without pay, DCP (outer north) Hareshwar Swami said.
The accused were identified as Salim-ul-Rehman alias Wasim, 38, a resident of Ganderbal in Srinagar, Suraj, 31, a resident of Begampur in Delhi, Mohammed Talib, of Rampur in Uttar Pradesh, and Satnam Singh alias Sardar Ji, of Barabanki in Uttar Pradesh.
A police team arrested Rehman from Srinagar and Suraj from Delhi on August 14. “Salim operated a placement agency in Bemina under the name V.A. Manpower Pvt Ltd, through which nearly 500 people had been trafficked in two years,” Swami said, adding that each victim was “sold” for ₹20,000-25,000 if male, and ₹40,000-60,000 if female.
Suraj allegedly admitted he ferried trafficked persons from railway stations in Delhi on the instructions of agents. Subsequently, the team arrested the two other accused, Talib and Singh, on August 19 and rescued a 16-year-old girl during the raid. From Talib, police recovered a forged UP Police identity card, which he allegedly used to evade checks while transporting children, the DCP said.
Police said the network of touts and placement agents targeted vulnerable minors and labourers at railway stations and moved them across states under fake identities. Payments were routed through UPI and hawala channels. Investigators are now probing financial trails, vehicles used for transport, and documents that enabled the trafficking.
The DCP said the probe revealed more accused-Shahbaz Khan, Naresh, Rohit Pandey, and Sohail Ahmad of Sunaaz Placement Agency in Srinagar-as part of the syndicate, and added that more arrests may be made.