A group of 21 minors from Bihar’s Samastipur, all alleged victims of trafficking, was rescued from a bus in the Maidan area early on Monday.

Police said the children, aged between 12 and 14, were being taken to Howrah to work in bangle factories. Most of the children told the police that they were under the impression that they had been brought to Calcutta for a picnic, but some apparently knew that they would be made to work.

Three men in their 20s who were accompanying the children have been arrested on charges of human trafficking and criminal conspiracy. The children have been handed over to the Child Welfare Committee (CWC).

According to the official procedure, family members of each of the 21 children will be contacted and asked to appear before the committee. “The children will be allowed to go home only if the CWC is satisfied with the family members’ explanation on why they were allowed to leave home. Else, the kids will stay back in government homes,” an officer said.

The Child Labour Amendment (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 2016, does not allow children below the age of 14 to work except as a child artiste or in a family business not deemed hazardous. Parents are liable to be punished if they are found to have engaged their children below 14 in work in violation of the act.

Several police officers Metro spoke to said the rescue of so many victims of human trafficking at one go in the city was rare.

“These things happen in suburbs. We rarely get any human trafficking cases in proper Calcutta except while conducting raids at brothels or parlours. But so many children being trafficked together in a bus is unusual,” said a senior officer of Calcutta police.

The bus was intercepted near Babughat around 5.30am. Calcutta and Howrah police had set up night pickets to intercept the bus following a tip-off from Bachpan Bachao Andolan, an NGO, which gave specific information about the vehicle and the 21 children who were being allegedly trafficked.

“The children underwent an overnight journey from Samastipur, around 550km from Calcutta. The plan was that the bus would stop for a while near Babughat, from where the children were to be sent to Howrah in smaller groups in various vehicles to avert police glare,” an officer said.

Bengal is among the states that account for maximum trafficking cases in the country. Hundreds of children and women are smuggled out of the state — at times with false hopes of livelihood and at other times with false promises of marriage.

“It is easy to lure poor people with money and pretension of love. Many girls in villages in South 24-Parganas go missing after falling in love with strangers, whose real identity and intention are hidden from them till it is too late. By the time they realise, the girls have been sold,” said Bappaditya Mukherjee of Prantakatha, an NGO that deals with trafficking survivors.

Mukherjee said widespread joblessness during the Covid pandemic had left children and their parents more vulnerable to migration and trafficking. In a large number of cases, it is found that children have been forced to leave home by their poor parents who are in desperate need of cash to run their families.