While investigating the viral video of a Bangladeshi girl being tortured in India, the police have traced an international racket of traffickers which uses social media to rope in prospective targets.
The trafficker gang first targets young women — school, college students or young housewives — through video-sharing social networking service Tiktok, then socialise with them and finally traffic them abroad luring them of better jobs.
Dhaka Metropolitan Police’s Deputy Commissioner (Tejgaon division) Md Shahidullah at a press conference on Saturday said that after trafficking the girls abroad, the gang members forced them into prostitution.
The traffickers initially launch a Facebook group for marking Tiktok videos, mostly memes and trolls, and invite boys and girls to the group to get prospective targets. They act as administrators of those groups, said the police officer.
He said the racket was wide networked and covers Dubai, many Middle Eastern countries and southwestern part of India.
In a video that went viral on Facebook recently, three to four youths including a girl were seen physically and sexually torturing a young woman stripping her off.
The police at a press conference on Thursday said that the incident took place in Indian state of Kerala and the victim and the torturers were Bangladeshis. They also identified one of the torturers as “Tiktok Hriday Babu” who was arrested Bangalore police.
Shahidullah said that arrested Hridoy Babu was one of admins of the so-called video-sharing group that had hosted a pool party at a resort near Dhaka in 2020 which was participated by around 700 to 800 young boys and girls.
The prime sponsor of the Facebook group is an international human trafficking racket based at Anandapur in Bangalore which traffics young women to India and force them into prostitution, he said.
The racket has contracts with some local hotels and supply women there in exchange of money, the official added.
Shahidullah said that the four who were arrested in Bangalore went there illegally. “They have no passport or visa. We are trying to bring them back as soon as possible,” he said.
Replying to a question, he said that investigations found information of some more trafficked young women. “We won't say anything right now about them. The number of victims is not small,” he said.
Shahidullah said that a case was also filed against the racket in India.
