Sarpanches From MP, Rajasthan Exposed as Brokers in Major Ahmedabad Child Trafficking Ring

An organized inter-state child trafficking ring has been uncovered by the Ahmedabad Police Crime Branch, revealing that village sarpanches in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh have been acting as brokers to traffic children into Gujarat for forced begging.

The cross-border racket was exposed during a coordinated, large-scale anti-begging and rescue drive spearheaded by the Ahmedabad Crime Branch and the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) as a part of the preparations for the Commonwealth Games 2030 that is to be hosted by the city.

 Investigators have so far rescued and identified 276 children who were trafficked into the city through this network.

From Villages to Traffic Signals

According to senior Crime Branch officials, the process begins at the grassroots level in rural areas of Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, where trafficking syndicate operators directly approach local village sarpanches to help them identify families experiencing extreme poverty.

To secure the children, the syndicates pay the sarpanches an upfront fee. The sarpanches hand over a portion of this advance to the parents—who frequently view sending their children to major cities as a necessary source of income—while keeping the rest as a brokerage fee. 

Beyond the initial advance, brokering sarpanches continue to pocket a 20 percent cut of the daily earnings generated by the children on the streets.

Once the children reach Ahmedabad, the syndicate maps out specific deployment locations based entirely on daily revenue potential. Investigators stated that the children are not deployed at random, but are instead systematically routed to specific high-traffic clusters. Religious places and temples generate the highest daily collections, followed closely by major traffic intersections, public hospitals, and luxury shopping malls.

Rescue and Rehabilitation

Following the crackdown, the rescued children are being accommodated in shelters. The state administration has initiated a comprehensive rehabilitation protocol under the "Sadak Se School Tak" (From Streets to School) initiative. O

Officials confirmed that all 276 children will be enrolled in local government primary schools and provided with free food, clothing, and psychological counseling to help them transition out of forced labor.

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