Joint forces have rescued 21 people including women and children from the hilly hideout of traffickers in Teknaf, a border upazila of Cox's Bazar. They were rescued from the area adjacent to Karachipara Ghat in Baharchhara Union in a raid on Thursday (October 2) night. With this, 29 people have been freed from the clutches of traffickers in two consecutive days.

Coast Guard Media Officer Lieutenant Commander Siam ul Haque confirmed the matter to the media. He said that the traffickers had kept a group of people including women and children captive deep in the mountains with the intention of illegally smuggling them to Malaysia by sea. After receiving information from a secret source, a joint team of the Coast Guard and the Navy conducted the raid around 11 pm on Wednesday.

During the raid, the traffickers fled after sensing the presence of law enforcement agencies. As a result, no one could be arrested. However, Lieutenant Commander Siam ul Haque said that intelligence surveillance by the Coast Guard and Navy is continuing to identify and arrest them.

It is worth noting that earlier on Wednesday (October 1), joint forces rescued 7 Rohingya women and a child from the hilly hideout of the traffickers in the same area. Locals are seeing this series of operations as an important progress in preventing human trafficking.