Compiled by C. ARUNO, CASSANDRA VICTOR and R. ARAVINTHAN
AT least 46 girls are missing from villages in Rajasthan, India, in a suspected case of human trafficking and forced prostitution, Makkal Osai reported.
Priyank Kanungo, who is the chairman of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights of India, is leading an investigative team to Bhilwara villages where the disappearances had been reported.
Kanungo tweeted that as many as 46 girls, who had been enrolled in state government-operated shelters and schools, were missing from the villages.
Authorities suspected that they could have been sold to trafficking and prostitution rings.
Kanungo and his team apparently found discrepancies when they visited some of the schools.
The commission has served notice to the Rajasthan state government to locate the missing girls and submit a report on the matter within 15 days.
In a separate incident, the commission found that orderlies at a children’s refuge in Madhya Pradesh had forcibly converted three girls and prepared new identity documents for them under new names.
This has reportedly been done at the behest of powerful individuals.
> A vernacular school in Kapar, Selangor, has been inundated with water over the past few days, Malaysia Nanban reported.
Its pupils were given the day off yesterday as the classrooms and other facilities were unusable for now.
Despite the day off, teachers turned up at the school to help in recovery efforts.
According to the Parent-Teacher Association, one measure being taken was to build a drain between the school and the adjacent oil palm plantation.
● The above article is compiled from the vernacular newspapers (Bahasa Malaysia, Chinese and Tamil dailies). As such, stories are grouped according to the respective language/medium. Where a paragraph begins with this ' >'sign, it denotes a separate news item.
