At least 50 people visited the Bangladesh Jatiya Mahila Ain-jibi Samity's shelter for women and children at Dhanmondi in the city till yesterday to sec if their missing children were among those rescued from traffickers in India and brought back home on Wednesday night.

Seventeen children and five women rescued while being trafficked to Dubai, are now in the BJMAS shelter.

Worried parents and guardians who had lost their children gathered at the shelter yesterday and on Wednesday.

The children were being taken to be used as camel jockeys and the women were lured with offers of Jobs in the Gulf states. They were rescued by In-- dtan* police inBangalore. ~ —-—•

They were brought back by the BJMAS in cooperation with a New Delhi-based NGO. Bangladesh High Commission in India and Indian authorities.

Eleven men. who were accompanying the children and women, were handed over to the immigration authorities by the Indian police at Benapofe on Wednesday. They are likely to be brought back to Dhaka.

Some of them were travelling with their wives and children in search of better future in the Gulf, offered by the traffickers in lieu of money, preliminary investigations by BJMAS revealed. But a few others are suspected to have links with the traffickers.

BJMAS officials said they faced a difficult task in identifying the real parents or guardians when the visitors made strong claims for their children or wards yesterday. None was however handed over.

"We will go through each case carefully.” Ms Salma Ali. Executive Director of BJMAS told The Daily Star last night.