Dr. Ehtesham Waquarib, former Gumla Superintendent of Police has received the FICCI Smart Policing Award for his instrumental work against human trafficking at a ceremony in New Delhi on September 15.
– Mohd Naushad Khan
Dr. Ehtesham Waquarib, former Gumla Superintendent of Police has received the FICCI Smart Policing Award for his instrumental work against human trafficking at a ceremony in New Delhi on September 15. He received the award from Prakash Singh, former DGP of Uttar Pradesh and Assam, and Manjari Jaruhar, former Spl. DG of the CISF, at the FICCI Federation House. Waquarib is the first police officer from Jharkhand to get the national honor.
Waquarib started the anti-human trafficking unit (AHTU) club while serving as the SP Gumla. He was awarded for his remarkable role in rehabilitating 57 girl victims and getting some of them enrolled into Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalayas and trained in skills of their choice to live their life with dignity.
On 30 July, 2022, in order to mark the World Day against Trafficking in Persons, the Gumla district administration had launched AHTU helpline number 8986604606 to register complain.
Waquarib, who was transferred last week from Gumla to police headquarters in Ranchi (Jharkhand) while talking to radiancenews.com said, “I was SP for two years in Gumla which is a very remote area. From this area, girls were trafficked as domestic workers to Delhi and other important cities. During investigation, I found that these girls were paid very less and were subjected to torture and violence. In Gumla, we have anti-human trafficking unit and a nodal center was established as AHTU. The function of this club was to find out whereabouts of the trafficked girls.”
He further said, “In general, the function of police is to file FIR, rescue trafficked girls and to send the accused to jail. But we extended this function and brought back the trafficked girls, rehabilitated them, provided proper training and guidance and those who were below 14 years were enrolled in schools. The system was already there, I just coordinated it to help these girls. Our police officers personally visited them and facilitated their rehabilitation. In one year, we rescued about 57 girls and rehabilitated them and integrated them with the society. We then ensured the prosecution of the accused. We tried to break their nexus of human trafficking.”
Waquarib observed, “We provided awareness to these girls in all aspects and even coordinated with placement agencies as part of the rehabilitation program. In order to educate and to make them aware, we organised seminars at block, panchayat and district levels. Police officers used to visit these places for awareness campaign and I also used to visit there. I have received the FICCI Smart Policing Award for my role against human trafficking and I feel that such effort should be made at all district level to curb this menace.”
Earlier, when individual, society, groups, NGOs, local administration, state governments and Central government played their part in the fight against Covid-19 pandemic, efforts were made by Dr Waquarib with medical background (MBBS and MD from AMU) in preparing his district to fight Covid-19 was exemplary.
At that point of time, the IPS officer used his knowledge in Public Health (MBBS and MD in Community Medicine) and his experience of having worked during H1N1 2009 pandemic and his association with the WHO for eradication of polio during his PG days. He went an extra mile at that time to prepare Jamshedpur to fight Covid-19 in advance in association with state government. As an IPS officer and SP Rail (Jamshedpur) he was not having any official obligation to look after Corona pandemic but he had voluntarily chosen to render his service thus by setting an example. His pioneer effort was lauded by regional, state and even mainstream media during the pandemic.
