Chennai, February 11, 2010: Probe into the child trafficking case by the Tamil Nadu police has now revealed that 74 girls in the 7 to 12 age group brought from Manipur and Assam have gone missing.

Police personnel and Child Welfare Committee members stumbled upon this information while interviewing 76 children, 53 from Manipur and 23 from Assam rescued from Bedesta Blessing Home, an unauthorised home in Kuzhithurai, Kanyakumari district, on January 24. A police team from Kanyakumari has gone to Bangalore, where the children are believed to be in captivity.

According to investigating officers the girls had been taken to Bangalore before the raid at Kuzhithurai.

A Manipur native called Paul had brought 150 children from Manipur and Assam to Chennai in 2007, and they were kept here till 2009.The boys, numbering 76, were taken to a place on the outskirts of Thiruvananthapuram and then to Kanyakumari by a person called Saji.

We have reports that the 74 girls were taken to Bangalore, P Kannappan, DIG, Kanyakumari, said.

Late on Thursday, a source involved in the operations informed that 24 girls had been traced to a home in Bangalore and that Saji had been taken into custody.

Meanwhile, reports of child abuse have surfaced in another case of child trafficking in Chennai, with the arrest of Immanuel (45) � from whose unregistered NGO, Reach Home Children Foundation, the police rescued 16 Manipuri children on January 21 � and his aide, Pastor Albert Karunagaran of Purasaiwalkam, kept three Manipuri kids in hiding for more than 10 days.

Immanuel had kept 16 Manipur children in his unregistered Reach Child Home in Mogappair East.

When the police rescued the 16 children, three were reportedly hidden in a cupboard in the house.

Later, the three were shifted to different houses, including Karunagaran�s, before they were produced before the Child Welfare Committee (CWC) on February 4, the police said.

Karunagaran had also helped Immanuel shift the children to other houses in Pammal.

Two other pastors, Sam Yesudoss and Paul, are said to have assisted Immanuel, who had been operating from his hideout and made a bid to send back the three children to Manipur clandestinely through Esther, a former warden of his home.

According to Esther, who now works as a receptionist at a hotel in Lucknow, Immanuel called her over the phone on January 22.He asked her to rush to Chennai and take back the three children she had brought with her in 2008.When she reached the city on January 26, a representative of Immanuel received her and took her to a house, where she saw the three malnourished children, Esther said.

Immanuel told her that he was in trouble, gave her Rs 15,000 and asked her to take the children to Manipur secretly.

�At that time, I was not aware of the earlier developments,� she said.

Esther had worked as a warden at the children�s home in 2006 for a year before returning to Manipur.

She got a call from Immanuel in 2008, who told her that he had received more funds and could help some more children pursue their education.

So she brought the three children to the NGO.

Immanuel has admitted to having abused and threatened the children.

Karunakaran had assisted and abetted the abuse, the CB-CID said in a statement.

Children of the Zeliangrong tribe of Manipur have been the target of traffickers , who take them from their parents promising free education.

Scared of insurgency and drug abuse in the region, parents hand over children to these unscrupulous element , who even collect Rs 10,000 from them for lodging and food.

Comment