Cops arrest 2 suspected human traffickers

Two more people were held in Satkhira's bordering area yesterday over trafficking a young girl who returned home from India last month after escaping captivity of 77 days.

Amirul Islam, 32, and Abdus Salam Mollah, 36, would be shown arrested in a case filed with Hatirjheel Police Station under the human trafficking act, Hafiz Al Faruk, additional deputy commissioner (Tejgaon Division) of Dhaka Metropolitan Police, told The Daily Star.

The two were being brought to Dhaka.

With them, five people have so far been held in the case lodged by the 18-year-old victim.

The plaintiff is one of the three Bangladeshis, aged between 18 and 25, who managed to escape from the clutches of a transnational trafficking racket in India.

After returning home, she filed the case accusing 12 people, including Rifadul Islam Ridoy, 26, also known as Ridoy Babo on mobile app TikTok.

Talking to this newspaper recently, the victim described the brutalities she endured for more than two months in India's Bengaluru and Chennai.

Earlier on June 2, Hatirjheel police arrested three accused in the case. One of the arrestees -- Mehedi Hasan Babu -- admitted to investigators to have trafficked nearly 1,000 women to India in the last eight years.

Indian police arrested Ridoy and five other Bangladeshis in Bengaluru on May 27 after a video clip showing a 22-year-old Bangladeshi woman being tortured and sexually assaulted went viral on social media.

Bangladeshi law enforcers later identified the transnational trafficking racket which has around 50 members.

Following the incident of the video clip going viral, father of the victim filed another case with Hatirjheel Police Station under the human trafficking act and Pornography Control Act.

Investigators said three women, who returned home recently, and the 22-year-old victim were trafficked by the same racket.

On June 1, the Rapid Action Battalion picked up the "kingpin" of the racket, Ashraful Islam Rafi alias Boss Rafi, and his three associates from Jhenidah Sadar and Abhaynagar upazilas and Benapole of Jashore.

Rafi was shown arrested in the case filed by the father of the 22-year-old victim.

The Rab said "TikTok Ridoy" was one of the main agents of Rafi with whom he met two years ago. They used the social media platform to entice girls with modelling contracts or well-paid jobs and trafficked nearly 50.

Rafi with the help of Ridoy trafficked the girls to the South Indian city of Bengaluru. The main purpose of trafficking women to India was to engage them in sex work, Rab added.

Indian police have so far arrested 12 people, mostly Bangladeshis, involved in the trafficking racket.