The State Human Rights Commission has complained that the Collector and the District Police Chief of Malappuram district are not complying with the commission’s demand for a report on a case of three Bangladeshi women staying at the Mahila Mandiram in Kozhikode, brought here as victims of human trafficking eight years ago.
Commission member P.Mohandas, who visited the women on June 22, had demanded a report from the Collector and the Superintendent of Police, Malappuram, as their cases had been registered in Malappuram district and the court hearing was going on at Manjeri.
However, they had not responded to the demand even though the specified time of two weeks had expired, Mr.Mohandas said. The women, in their early teens when picked up by the police in Malappuram, are being detained on the grounds that they will be needed when their cases come up for hearing in the court.
Incidentally, the investigation had not progressed much as some of the accused are absconding. The women could not go back home even though they obtained a travel permit from the Bangladesh High Commission in New Delhi, as a result of which the permit expired in April 2016.
However, a fresh travel permit has been issued and the district magistrates of their respective home districts have provided written assurance that videoconferencing can be arranged for the women to testify in the court, if the need arose.
The commission pointed out that it was unfair to detain the women in Kozhikode when they were the victims and the accused are yet to be apprehended.
