Chennai: The city police on Friday busted a human trafficking racket with the arrest of a 25-year-old man, who was looking for a prospective buyer for child labour on Friday. The man was caught by the police based on an alert by an autorickshaw driver who had listened to a conversation between the suspect, B. Mainool of Guwahati in Assam, with a teashop owner at the Koyambedu bus terminus. He was demanding Rs 3 lakh from the shop owner to employ the child there.
Mainool made the child victim (a teenaged boy) sit on a platform inside CMBT and went around looking for prospective buyers. He was also making enquiries at the auto stand when one of the auto drivers got alerted and informed the police. A team, headed by inspector Hari Kumar, posing as a prospective buyer, approached the man. He told him that he would give him Rs 3.5 lakh for the boy to which the man readily agreed.
As soon as the police showed him the money, he came with the boy and the police arrested him. “The boy was not aware of the deal and he believed that Mainool was looking for a job for him,” the police said. Enquiries with the teenager revealed that Mainool was his neighbour, who initially got him a job in a teashop in Assam where he was not paid his salary properly.
When he enquired with the employer, he told him that he had already paid the money to Mainool. The juvenile lodged a complaint with the Assam police, alleging that Mainool cheated him, after which Mainool convinced the boys’ parents that he would get a better job in Chennai. Mainool had come to Tiruchy 10 years back.
The police said that he had confessed that he decided to ‘sell’ the boy to wreak vengeance for his lodging a complaint against him.
