20,000 Chhattisgarh girls sold: Ajit Jogi

Over 20,000 girls belonging to Chhattisgarh's tribal region have been sold by human traffickers in the last eight years in cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Chennai, Congress leader Ajit Jogi said Sunday.

These girls mainly belonged to Jashpur, Surguja and Raigarh districts and were taken away by human traffickers in the name of jobs and trainings, the former Chhattisgarh chief minister said in a statement.

Expressing serious concern over the rising rate of human trafficking in the state, the leader hit out at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government and accused it of "overlooking the problem since it came to power" in December 2003.

He said the prevailing law-and-order situation was "one of the main reasons for rise in human trafficking cases in the state's tribal areas".

Chhattisgarh's vast northern region, including Surguja, Korba, Jashpur, Koria and Raigarh districts are infamous for human trafficking cases. There have been many incidents of men taking away impoverished girls to big cities on the pretext of providing them jobs and forcing them into prostitution.

In a recent case, police Nov 10 arrested a youth in Jashpur for allegedly taking away 20 locals, including 14 girls.