COIMBATORE: In what is claimed to be the latest in a string of human-trafficking related allegations surrounding a school in Sulur, a woman from Meghalaya and her two minor daughters who were illegally confined by an employee of the school, were rescued by police and child protection officials in Sulur on Tuesday.
According to sources, the 35-year-old woman and her two daughters, aged 11 and 16, were rescued after the woman’s son, who is studying at a college in Manipur, informed the college authorities about the ‘forced confinement’ of his mother and two sisters. The college authorities then forwarded the complaint to a right-wing organisation, whose activists took up the matter with officials in Coimbatore.
Local administration officials, who received the complaint on Monday night, alerted the Singanallur police, who, with the assistance of child protection officials and the anti-human trafficking police wing, raided the Sulur school and rescued the woman and her two young daughters. The three are said to be from West Khasi Hills district, Meghalaya. They were produced before the Child Welfare Committee, where they told the officials that one Lungu from Assam had brought them to Coimbatore promising that he would arrange for her daughters’ schooling. Believing his words, the woman came along with her daughters to the city. However, Lungu, an employee of the Sulur school, confined the woman and her daughters in a separate hostel. CWC officials recorded their statement, while Lingu was detained. Police told Express that the school had courted similar controversies in the past. The school is believed to have many students from Manipur and Meghalaya, apart from students from Tamil Nadu.