Hetauda, April 27

The body of a teenager, who had gone missing from Manahari VDC of Makawanpur months ago, was brought to Hetauda on Monday.

Police handed over the body to the concerned family yesterday.

Fifteen-year-old Tejraj Moktan of Manahari-4, Simpani, had gone missing from his home on December 21 last year.

Following the complaint from his family, police along with local non-governmental organisations and local residents had expedited the search for him. Investigation showed that the boy had fallen victim to human trafficking.

According to Makawanpur Police Chief SP Mira Chaudhari, the boy had gone to India for work. “The boy had left home without any notice to go to work in India as per the suggestion of some con men who meant to take him to India and employ him in difficult jobs for some commission,” said SP Chaudhari.

He informed that 19 other boys were also trafficked from the district.

“Three persons are involved in outsourcing young boys from the village. One of them is Gyan Bahadur Rumba who operates from India while two others namely Dipak Pakhrin and Ram Bahadur Moktan are from Manahari itself.

The duo lure and outsource young boys from the village and take them to India for dreadful jobs,” he said.

According to Chaudhary, the smugglers were pocketing commission in return for outsourcing young boys to India from Nepal.

“It has been found that the boys were given assurance of Rs 10,500 monthly salary for some ‘easy job’ in some ‘good’ company in India, but upon reaching the neighbouring country, they were deployed in meat packing in some companies of Mumbai and Aligarh.

The boys haven’t received their salary for the past five months now,” Chaudhary informed.

Police have arrested Pakhrin and kept him in custody of Makawanpur Police.

Police, citing Pakhrin, informed that Tejraj had died due to cardiac arrest on April 19. “I’d taken him to India after telling him that there was a good employment opportunity for him at a meat packing company,” said Pakhrin.

He said his father-in-law Gyan Bahadur had convinced him to take young boys to India.

Police investigation showed that eight of the boys had fled the company in India and returned to Nepal about some time ago.

Similarly, Nari Seep Srijana Kendra (Women Skill Generation Centre), a non-governmental organisation, rescued and brought five of the boys to Hetauda yesterday.

The centre said six boys were still working at the meat packing company till date.

According to sources at the organisation, frequent reports of labour exploitation of under-aged Makawanpur boys in different Indian cities, including Gorakhpur, Aligardh, Ilahabad and Mumbai have been recorded.