Full Post Style

Jitender Parmar

Delhi : Six minor girls aged between 14 and 17 years were rescued from a spa centre inside a mall in Rohini, where they were being forced into prostitution. Acting on information received by the NGO Association of Voluntary Action (AVA), the Joint Commissioner of Police, Northern Range, initiated a joint raid with the Special Staff, Rohini, supported by teams from NGOs AVA and Bal Vikas Dhara. Three customers and one staff member of the spa were arrested, and five adult women were also rescued. The FIR is currently being registered at the South Rohini Police Station.

The rescued girls, originally from Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal, told officials that they had applied for the spa job through an online portal called ‘Work India’. During verification, one girl who claimed to be over 18 was found carrying multiple Aadhaar cards and is suspected to be from Bangladesh, raising concerns about an international trafficking network operating through such establishments. In recent years, many vulnerable children from Bihar, Jharkhand, the North East, West Bengal, as well as neighbouring countries have been trafficked to metro cities and pushed into such sex rackets.

During their preliminary research, members of the Association for Voluntary Action had uncovered that an illegal sex racket was operating inside the ‘Crystal Beauty Spa Centre’ in Mangalam Palace, where minor girls were trafficked from neighbouring states and forced into prostitution. The team found that one of the pimps at the spa openly demanded ₹7,500 to “provide” three minor girls. AVA immediately alerted Vijay Singh, Joint Commissioner of Police, Northern Range, who responded without delay and initiated the raid.

“When the team reached the spa, the staff locked the centre from inside and refused to open it. After knocking repeatedly for almost half an hour, we finally had to cut through the lock to enter,” said an AVA team member who was part of the raid. Once inside, the team found all the girls and women huddled together in one room, while condom packets and alcohol bottles lay scattered in another.

Speaking about the process and coordination, Manish Sharma, Senior Director, Association for Voluntary Action, said, “Mr. Vijay Singh’s swift and strategic action shows what is possible when the system works with conviction. But the same urgency does not always reach the lower ranks. Trafficking and such rackets will not be dismantled by isolated acts of efficiency. Every officer, at every level, must show the same commitment to protecting children. Real change will come only when this urgency becomes the norm, not the exception.” Association for Voluntary Action is a partner of Just Rights for Children which is the country’s largest network of over 250 NGOs working for child protection in 451 districts across the country.

Nava Thakuria

PLF awards go to Moneswar Deori, Srotashwini Tamuli

Guwahati: Pragjyotishpur Literature Festival 2025, concluding on Sunday at Srimanta Sankardeva Kalakshetra in the city, witnessed four intriguing sessions on second day, where the interaction with eminent actor and playwright Prithwiraj Rabha who spoke about his father Kalaguru Bishnu Prasad Rabha’s colourful life and struggles, stole the limelight. Organized by the Sankardeva Education and Research Foundation, the three-day festival was inaugurated on 14 November, where acclaimed author Shefali Baidya delivered the keynote address at the inaugural session.

Meanwhile, the organizers have announced eminent researcher and author Moneswar Deori as being the recipient of PLF 2025 award, where promising writer Srotashwini Tamuli has been declared as the winner of PLF youth award. Renowned Tiwa scholar and distinguished essayist Deori has authored over 20 books, who had resigned from his senior government job to devote fully for the world of literature and journalism. Similarly, a researcher at Birangana Sati Sadhani State University, Tamuli is an emerging voice in contemporary Assamese storytelling, said PLF 2025 president Phanindra Kumar Dev Choudhury.
Major attraction of the day was a reflective session on Kalaguru Bishnu Rabha, which was moderated by writer Nayanjyoti Bhattacharyya, where legislator Prithwiraj Rabha brought alive the extraordinary cultural journey of his father from a brilliant student to a legendary artist to a revolutionary preacher. Kalaguru dedicated his life to three masters namely Sri Krishna, Srimanta Sankardeva and Leonardo da Vinci, stated Rabha while narrating the fascinating stories of his father’s personal, artistic and revolutionary world.

Earlier, a panel discussion titled ‘Assamese Language, Literature and Journalism: Growth and Expansion’ attracted the attention of novice journalists, where four seasoned scribes namely Dilip Chandan, Bedabrata Dev Mishra, Bidyut Kumar Bhuyan and Nava Thakuria highlighted the challenges of print journalism while nurturing the native language. They were unanimous in their views that the traditional journalism will return back to the valued readers as the digital fatigue of electronic and other internet media outlets exhaust the consumers.

In another session on ‘Evolution of Assamese Performing Arts: From Ankiya Bhawana to Bhramyman’, four cultural personalities viewed theatre as the mother of all performing arts. National award-winning filmmaker and playwright Kripal Kalita, much-admired performer Pakija Begum, dramatists Pankaj Jyoti Bhuyan and Hillal Kumar Pathak painted a challenging picture of Assamese theatre but with a lot of promises to keep. Acknowledging the contribution of Assam’s mobile theatre groups, the speakers lamented that the landscape of Assamese theatre was yet to ascertain a distinct tradition. The day came to an end with a poetry session titled ‘Kavya Kaveri, where several poets captivated the audience with their recitations in different languages.