In a troubling turn of events, the Delhi High Court has asked the city police to account for an alleged chain of missteps that, according to two NGOs, enabled the re-trafficking of several minor girls who had only just been rescued from sexual exploitation.
Justice Ravinder Dudeja, responding to a petition by Just Rights For Children Alliance and the Association For Voluntary Action, issued a notice to the Delhi Police demanding an explanation. At the heart of the issue: serious claims that after busting a sex trafficking network, officers returned rescued minors to their families without verifying identities, conducting medical exams, or notifying the Child Welfare Committee—as mandated by law.
What followed, the NGOs say, was both predictable and tragic.
The first raid, conducted in Burari, led to the rescue of eight girls—three of them minors. Yet, despite the presence of children and a clear mandate under the Juvenile Justice Act and Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, police allegedly bypassed all protocols and handed them back to their “so-called” parents. No FIR was filed. No traffickers arrested.
Weeks later, a second raid in Wazirabad led to the rescue of seven more girls—five minors. Among them was a grimly familiar face: one of the minors previously rescued in Burari.
The petitioners argue that this reappearance wasn’t a coincidence, but a consequence of institutional negligence. With no legal action taken after the first raid, traffickers simply relocated their operations and resumed business as usual.
“The child was not rescued, she was recycled back into abuse,” the plea starkly stated, slamming the police’s “casual and illegal” conduct. The absence of any preventive or rehabilitative effort, the NGOs claim, essentially handed victims back to the very system they were pulled from.
The petition seeks not only an inquiry into the failure of law enforcement but also a demand for clear, enforceable guidelines aligned with the National Human Rights Commission’s standards—rules that would require police and other authorities to act decisively and lawfully when minors are rescued from such horrific situations.
The matter is slated for hearing on July 17. Until then, the silence from the streets of Burari and Wazirabad remains deafening.
