New Delhi, October 9
While Delhi was being dolled up ahead of the Commonwealth Games, red-light areas were also busy planning to welcome the visitors and tourists. Investigations by The Tribune reveal that trafficking of girls, especially minors, has risen considerably in the past two months.

Most children are being brought in through fraudulent placement agencies for domestic work and used for commercial sex in rented residences in semi-posh Delhi localities, including East of Kailsah, Kalkaji, Govindpuri Extension and Tuglakabad Extension.

Over 121 girls have been rescued from traffickers from New and Old Delhi Railway Stations alone in the past two months. This number, as per documented data with registered anti-trafficking NGOs, was much lower in the past two years until August 2010.

Police records of these rescued girls show they worked as sex slaves, fetching for their “masters” anywhere between Rs 1,000 and Rs 30,000 an hour.

Records of Shakti Vahini, active in the GB Road red-light area, alone confirm 75 rescues of minors in past two months. “Of these girls, 50 per cent were rescued from forced sex. There’s a definite surge, around 50 per cent, in trafficking,” says Rishi Kant of Vahini. In 30 cases, the FIRs have been lodged for kidnapping and rape.

Another NGO Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA) last month detected 39 minors trafficked from MP on Paschim Express which halted at Nizamuddin train station. “This is shocking. There is a whole sex business going on around the Games. Trafficking in the past five years has never been so high despite regular surveillance of the police and anti-traffickers at destination points,” Rakesh Sanger, national secretary of BBA admits.

Call details of Childline India’s five Delhi helplines tell a similar story. Of the 432 trafficking complaints recorded in the past one year, 70 pc came in the past three months.

“This surge is unprecedented and marks an eight-fold increase from the previous years. Ahead of CWG, we have also observed frenetic activity of traffickers not just in the GB Road area but also around railway stations.” Sumit Kumar of Childline says. Analysis of trafficked cases reveals 90 per cent of the rescues happened on Jharkhand Sampark Kranti, Northeast Express, Brahmaputra Mail and Awadh Assam Express, and most girls came from West Bengal, Jharkhand, Assam and Bihar. This despite the Home Ministry’s “Advisory for Prevention and Combat of Human Trafficking during the CWG” issued to Bengal, MP, Orissa, Jharkhand, Bihar, UP and New Delhi on September 10.

Case histories of trafficked girls indicate that they were being sourced for jobs in the name of the Games, a fact revealed by the MHA advisory, which says: “Certain fraudulent placement agencies, involved in trafficking, were promising jobs to young girls in the Capital ahead of the Games. Minor girls are the main targets. Some are even injected with oxytocin to attain puberty at a younger age.”

In 30 per cent cases, where minors were sold for sex, they were first put in homes. A 13-year-old girl from Mumbai was rescued on August 3. She was brought to Delhi through a Shakarpur-based placement agency by an agent named Pappu, who first sent her to work in Punjabi Bagh, then tried to sell her for prostitution. He is under arrest.

“We have conducted unprecedented number of rescues in recent days,” admits Surinderjit Kaur, SHO, Kamla Market police station, which covers GB Road.

Along the GB Road, condom sales have also risen sharply. Where the Delhi AIDS Control Society provides four lakh a month, it is now supplying six lakh.

(Names of the girls have been changed to protect identity)

(To be concluded)

New Delhi, October 9
Just when disturbing signals from Washington on Jammu and Kashmir are causing anxiety in New Delhi, Russia has favoured a peaceful settlement of the issue by India and Pakistan without third-party mediation.

Russia’s position on Jammu and Kashmir remains unchanged. “We do understand the complexity of the problem. Russia is for its peaceful resolution through talks between India and Pakistan at the negotiating table and not on the ground without any outside interference,” Russian Ambassador to India Alexander Kadakin told The Tribune in a interview here.

Moscow, he said, would welcome any step aimed at better understanding between India and Pakistan. His comments assume significance in the backdrop of the recent unrest in the Valley and media reports that US President Barack Obama, during his visit to India in early November, would nudge New Delhi to settle the Kashmir issue with Pakistan in return for Washington’s support for India’s candidature for a permanent seat at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). India has already made it clear that there was no link between the Kashmir issue and its bid for a permanent UNSC seat.

The Russian envoy asserted that Moscow wholeheartedly and fully supported India’s desire to become a permanent member of the UNSC whenever the whole structure of the UN was reconstituted. Kadakin said India and Russia were set to take their bilateral relationship to a new level when Russian President Dmitry Medvedev visits New Delhi in December. There will be several agreements, which will confirm our strategic partnership in important and critical fields like nuclear energy, space, pharmaceuticals and trade.

New Delhi, October 9
India today summoned Australian High Commissioner Peter Varghese to the foreign office and lodged a strong protest over what it called “racially offensive” e-mails circulated among police Down Under.

Video footage showing the electrocution of a man travelling on the roof of a crowded train in India was circulating in the Victoria state police computer system, a leading Australian nespaper said. It said comments were added in the e-mails suggesting “this might be the way to fix the Indian student problem”.

The Australian envoy later issued a statement later, saying the Australian and Victorian governments along with the Victorian Police condemned the incident in the strongest possible terms.

Bangalore, October 9
There’s a fresh twist in the Karnataka political drama. The rebel BJP legislators, who were holed up in a luxury hotel in Goa, now seem to be “under the control of Opposition Janata Dal (Secular)”.

Even as the Chief Minister, BS Yeddyurappa, is frantically visiting various temples to invite divine intervention to tide over the crisis that are threatening his chair, the rebels today reportedly moved to another destination from Goa with JD(S) functionaries, including JD(S) MLA Zameer Ahmed escorting them. The special session of the Assembly convened by Yeddyurappa to prove his majority is slated to start on Monday and now with JD(S) getting an ‘upper hand’, precious little time is left for the BJP to set its house in order.

Interestingly, MP Renukacharya, Karnataka Excise Minister and identified as the ‘ringleader of the revolt’, was left behind in the Goa hotel. After returning to Bangalore, Renukacharya told reporters that 13 MLAs - eight from the BJP and five Independents - left the hotel in company of Zameer Ahmed and others. Renukacharya, who startled everyone by issuing a statement on Thursday favouring Yeddyurappa, alleged that the JD(S) was offering each MLA over Rs 20 crore.

Renukacharya also alleged that the JD(S) functionaries had brought goons with them, a charge . denied by a rebel BJP MLA SK Bellubbi. Bellubbi, who had returned to the party fold yesterday and was spared the show-cause notice given under the anti-defection law to 11 other BJP MLAs by the Speaker, has re-joined the rebels today.

Rumours are flying thick and fast about various MLAs switching loyalty. BJP MLAs have been kept in safe custody at a resort here to prevent “poaching” by the JD(S). Similary, Congress and JD(S) legislators are also being safeguarded against “poaching” by the BJP.

The Congress today issued whip to its 73 MLAs to vote against the trust vote to be moved by Yeddyurappa. JD(S) also has issued whip to its 28 MLAs.

New Delhi, October 9
The tainted former chief of Medical Council of India (MCI) Ketan Desai lost further face today as the government-appointed Board of Governors of the MCI stripped him of his right to practice medicine.

The board also debarred Desai, facing CBI inquiry for alleged corrupt practices in grant of recognitions to medical colleges, from participating as a doctor in any medical conference in India or abroad and representing doctors of the country in any medical council or conference anywhere.

The decision assumes significance in the wake of Desai getting bail from the Delhi High Court to travel to Vancouver for a World Medical Association (WMA) Conference whose chief he was appointed last year. He was to visit Canada from October 13 to 16 to take over the reins of the WMA — something he can no longer do, as the MCI today directed him to “follow the order of the BoG scrupulously and without breach”.

BRIEFLY

RJD candidate abducted, freed
PATNA: Armed Naxalites abducted an RJD MLA Mohd Nehaluddin from Rafiganj Assembly seat along with his bodyguard and six supporters in Bihar's Aurangabad district on Saturday. They were freed after four hours of captivity. The incident took place when the MLA was campaigning in Laltenganj area under the Madanpur police station. The extremists also torched the campaign vehicle before taking them into captivity. Bihar's DGP Neelmani confirmed the incident. — TNS

CRPF constable kills commandant, SI
Sasaram: Upset over the duty alloted to him, a CRPF constable on Saturday allegedly shot dead an assistant commandant and a sub-inspector, besides leaving a havildar seriously injured at a paramilitary camp in Bihar's Rohtas district. "Constable Rahul Raj fired at them using his service rifle when the three were asleep inside a camp at Raipurchore village near here. While assistant commandant Rohit Deevan, sub-inspector RN Pandey died on the spot, havildar Anil Singh was referred to a hospital in Varanasi. Rahul Raj was later held,” SP Vikas Vaibhav. — PTI

7 dead as Rajdhani hits autorickshaw
KATIHAR (BIHAR): At least seven persons were on Saturday killed when Dibrugarh-New Delhi Rajdhani Express rammed into an autorickshaw carrying them at an unmanned level crossing in Katihar district, a senior railway official said. The train running at a speed between 90 and 100 kmph hit the autorickshaw as the auto driver tried to cross the tracks. — PTI