30th July is International Day against trafficking in Persons and Insight Media has released a groundbreaking investigative reportage, “Bengal Files: Tales of Grooming and trafficking” about how West Bengal has become the hub of Human trafficking. Its border with Bangladesh makes it accessible to one of the most dangerous networks of coordinated criminals in the world, who play with the lives of young, innocent Indian Girls.
Page 8. A corner. Just a few lines.
That’s where it was buried — the news of a girl disappearing from Malda, West Bengal. But as our team at Insight dug deeper, that insignificant column revealed a horrifying truth: it wasn’t an isolated tragedy. It was a systemic, well-organized human trafficking racket operating in full view, and West Bengal was one of its darkest epicenters.
A Vanishing Generation
According to scattered reports and survivor testimonies, over a thousand girls have vanished from Malda district alone. Most disappear without a trace. Promised good jobs, marriage, or a better life, they’re instead sold into domestic slavery, sexual exploitation, or trafficked across international borders to places like Dubai.
Behind these vanishing acts lies a coordinated criminal network — one that leverages poverty, gender inequality, and administrative apathy to sustain itself.
Ground Zero: West Bengal
West Bengal shares a porous 2,217 km-long border with Bangladesh, making illegal crossings shockingly easy. Since 2010, the state has witnessed a surge in undocumented Bangladeshi migrants, further complicating efforts to track traffickers or rescue victims.
With Sheikh Hasina’s government ousted in Bangladesh, diplomatic cooperation has only weakened, making the repatriation of victims and control over cross-border trafficking even more difficult.
The Faces Behind the Fight
Our investigation began with Inspector Shiv Shankar Bose, an officer whose relentless pursuit of justice has rescued over 100 trafficked girls. It was through him that we discovered Professor Ranjan Banerjee, an academic-turned-activist whose life changed in 2007 after witnessing trafficking during a train journey. Today, he travels across villages, educating girls, forming community watch groups, and fighting this war from the ground up.
The Hidden Horror of Grooming
But trafficking today doesn’t just rely on physical abduction — it begins online. Our research found an alarming trend: online gaming platforms and social media are being weaponized to befriend, groom, and ultimately exploit young girls.
In one harrowing case, we met a 15-year-old survivor, pregnant as a result of repeated sexual abuse. Lured by what she believed was a genuine relationship, she found herself caught in a nightmare she couldn’t escape.
Psychologists confirm that schoolgirls are prime targets — emotionally vulnerable and socially isolated, they’re easy to manipulate. And once trafficked, the stigma ensures that even rescued victims face rejection from their own families.
On October 10, 2016, Mou, a 17-year-old girl from Hanskhali, was the victim of an acid attack by Imran Ali Sheikh, a known trafficker in the region. Her only ‘crime’ was resisting his coercion. Mou succumbed to her injuries, while her mother survived with near-total vision loss. Despite evidence and community outcry, justice has been slow, if not absent. Stories like Mou’s are far too common — and far too often buried.
Places like Sandeshkhali have become synonymous with whispered horrors: allegations of trafficking, religious coercion, and political protection, yet little to no media coverage. The silence surrounding these crimes is deafening, and arguably complicit.
In interviews, survivors recount how police stations often dismiss complaints as “elopements” or “family disputes.” Meanwhile, girls are forcibly converted, transported across borders, and erased from society.
Behind every statistic is a life destroyed, a family shattered. These are not just numbers. They are screams swallowed in silence. According to a 2023 Times of India report, 1,247 girls from Malda alone have fallen prey to human trafficking. Yet the real figures are believed to be much higher, with many cases never reported, and even more never acknowledged.
Where Is the Accountability?
The West Bengal government continues to deny the extent of the crisis, often dismissing it as politically motivated noise. But when politics becomes a shield for injustice, it is the vulnerable — the poor, the women, the children — who suffer the most.
With each passing day, the question becomes more urgent:
Where is the outrage? Where are the rescue missions, the rehabilitation centers, the promised reforms?
The Bengal Files is not just a documentary. It is a mirror — a reflection of our collective failure to protect the most vulnerable among us. Narrated by Swati Goel Sharma, an eminent journalist and activist who runs Rashtriya Jyoti and has been working towards bringing forward cases of forced conversion and bringing justice to victims of human trafficking. Watch the documentary on our YouTube channel.
