In a shocking exposure by the police, five of 25 minor girls arrested in a red-light area close to the Indo-Nepal border in Bihar’s Araria district were on Monday identified as students of a government-run residential school, exclusively for dalit, tribal and backward caste girls.

The five minor girls, who were allegedly forced into the flesh trade in what seems to be an inter-state sex racket, were students of the Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidhayalaya (KGBV) at Simraha in Araria’s Forbesganj block. They were, like all other students at this Centre-sponsored residential school, inmates of the hostel, but a probe found they were missing from the hostel for several days.
A raid by Araria SP Shivdeep Waman Lande on theatres at a fair in Forbesganj, holding patently nude dance shows by young girls and on a red-light area in its vicinity, on Saturday night had led to the arrests of 68 people, including the 25 minor girls. The revelation of the five schoolgirls has raised critical questions on the functioning of the KGBV schools across Bihar and mortified officials of the state’s education and welfare departments.
“The 25 girls are all minors. The men arrested hail from across Bihar, states like UP and Haryana, and Nepal. The all girls seem to be from poor families and were apparently forced into the sex racket,” said Mr Lande. These arrests are one of the biggest against the flourishing sex rackets and human trafficking trade along the porous Indo-Nepal border.