In a significant development, the Itanagar Police have dismantled an interstate child trafficking ring operating between Arunachal Pradesh and Assam, successfully rescuing three minor girls and apprehending six suspects involved in the illicit activities. This operation was initiated on February 7, 2026, after a seven-year-old girl was discovered injured and alone in F Sector, Itanagar. She was promptly taken to the Women Police Station (WPS) and subsequently hospitalized for medical evaluation.
During her counselling at ‘Ane’s Home,’ a support center for women and child victims located at the WPS, the young girl revealed that she had been subjected to repeated abuse and cruel treatment after being trafficked from Assam, where she was forced into domestic labor. She managed to escape just a day prior to her discovery.
Following a formal complaint from the chairperson of the Child Welfare Committee (CWC), a case was registered (Itanagar WPS Case No. 09/2026) under various sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, the Child Labour (Prohibition & Regulation) Act, 1986, and the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015. The police coordinated raids that led to the rescue of three minor girls from distinct locations as part of their investigation, which revealed a deeply entrenched system of interstate trafficking. This system involved illegal cash transactions for selling children without any formal adoption protocols, depriving many of education, identity, and basic rights while forcing them into exploitative domestic work.
Investigators uncovered alarming instances of selling minors, including a case where a five-year-old child was sold for ₹12,000. Alarmingly, some of those arrested were the biological parents of the trafficked children. The investigation also highlighted patterns where multiple children from single families were trafficked to various households over time, with two additional children, including a 14-year-old boy missing since 2021, still unaccounted for.
Efforts are ongoing to locate these missing children, identify further victims, and track the financial dealings associated with this trafficking network. Officials have denounced this situation as a severe violation of child rights, emphasizing that domestic child labor and informal adoptions often disguise trafficking activities.
Among those arrested are women involved in the sale and purchase of minors, including one individual who was later granted bail. Notices have been issued to several people believed to have facilitated or had knowledge of the trafficking and subsequent disappearances of children. Meanwhile, the rescued minors have been presented to the Child Welfare Committee and placed in accredited shelter homes for their safety and rehabilitation.
