The ministry of home affairs (MHA) has asked all the states and union territories to use facial recognition, cyber surveillance and real-time alerts to identify the victims of human trafficking and track suspected traffickers, while recommending formation of joint investigations teams (JITs) in complex cross-border cases and monitoring ‘overseas recruitment scams’.
The detailed guidelines also ask the chief secretaries and director generals of police (DGPs) to use the section 111 of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) – which covers organised crime – to target the trafficking networks rather than limiting the investigations to low-level operators.
On the trends of overseas recruitment scams and digital exploitation of Indians, who are lured with high-paying jobs, MHA guidelines say that states’ police cyber cells “must maintain constant vigil over social media and job portals for suspicious offers”.
