70 bonded labourers rescued at Secunderabad railway station

Fourteen of them were below 14 years, while the others were between 15 and 19 years. The children were being brought to the city from Bihar, Odisha, Assam and West Bengal via Visakhapat-nam.

Police is currently searching for the agents, who managed to escape. Cops suspect that they must have got a tip-off about the raid.

Most of the children refused to speak about the agents and claimed they had come to Hyderabad on their own. However, the police found that three or four agents were involved.

Based on a tip off from State Commission for Protection of Child Rights a police team comprising around 100 personnel cordoned off the Secunderabad railway station and waited for the train to arrive. After a delay of more than six hours, the train arrived at 1 am.

The children were travelling in three coaches to escape the RPF. Some people were taken into custody but the police realised that they were innocent.

“We have 14 kids who were brought as labourers. The rest are not minors. We have sent the children to rescue homes. We will have to let the others, who are more than 18 years old, go,” said inspector S. Ramachandra Reddy.

“All of them belong to poor families from Bihar. They were brought to Visakhapatnam, from where we got the information,” said Mr Achyut Rao, SCPCR member.

Most of the children said that they had relatives in the city. “My uncle lives here. So I came to work here,” said a 14-year-old from Bihar. When asked where his uncle lived, he took out a piece of paper with LB Nagar scribbled on it.

The children also did not have any addresses or contact numbers with them. Police suspect that traffickers had told them not to answer queries.