Bettiah: A local court in West Champaran on Monday sentenced two residents of West Bengal to life imprisonment for trafficking three minor girls from Bihar, observing that the convicts had failed to explain why they were taking the children to Asansol.District and Additional Sessions Judge-IV Manvendra Mishra convicted Niyoti Devi and Nagesh Bhuiyan under Section 143(5) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) in connection with Naurangia police station case no. 05/2026. The court also imposed a fine of Rs1 lakh on each of the convicts. In case of default, they will have to undergo an additional three years of rigorous imprisonment.Additional public prosecutor Jitendra Bharti said the case dates back to Jan 22, 2026, when Laxmi Khatri, who runs an NGO, received information that a man and a woman were taking three minor girls to West Bengal for human trafficking.Acting on the tip-off, a joint team of Naurangia police and Anti-Human Trafficking Unit intercepted the accused near Haldiya Chatti and rescued the girls. The accused identified themselves as Niyoti Devi and Nagesh Bhuiyan, residents of Kamarwanga Haripur village in West Burdwan district of West Bengal.Police recovered two railway tickets from Bagaha to Asansol and two mobile phones from their possession. The rescued girls are from West Champaran.Bharati further said during the hearing, the prosecution argued that the accused had lured the girls and were taking them from Bihar to West Bengal. The court noted that the convicts had no familial relationship with the children and failed to offer any satisfactory explanation for travelling with them.Drawing the court’s attention to National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data, the prosecution said nearly one lakh children go missing in the country every year, of whom 72-77% are girls. It further cited reports of the Union ministry of women and child development, which state that many missing children are trafficked for sexual exploitation or the illegal trade in human organs, he added.The prosecution also informed the court that Bihar recorded 14,699 missing children cases in 2025, with girls accounting for 60-85% of the cases. It argued that an organised trafficking network was operating across the country and that the accused had exploited the economic vulnerability of the victims’ families.According to the prosecution, two of the rescued girls had lost their mothers, while all three belonged to extremely poor families. The accused allegedly used inducement and intimidation to take the children to West Bengal, where they were likely to be pushed into the flesh trade.The defence pleaded for leniency, claiming that both convicts were the sole breadwinners of their families and had remained in judicial custody since Jan 22. However, the court rejected the plea, citing the gravity of the offence.
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