The State government issued orders for the establishment of 10 Anti-Human Trafficking Units (AHTU) in addition to the existing three units in the State on Tuesday. The government also declared all the AHTUs as Police Stations and will be housed in the Disha police stations in their respective districts.
According to the government order issued by Principal Secretary to Govt. (Home Department) Kumar Vishwajeet, the decision to establish the AHTUs was taken considering the proposal of Director General of Police D. Gautam Sawang following the Central government's instructions for strengthening law enforcement with dedicated AHTUs in coordination with Women and Child Welfare Department, Labour Department and other stakeholders.
The new AHTUs will be established in all the 10 districts apart from the West Godavari, Guntur and Anantapur which already have AHTUs. Local police unit heads will be nodal officers of the AHTUs and an Additional DG rank officer from CID has been designated as State Level Anti Human Trafficking Nodal Officer.
An AHTU will have jurisdiction over the entire district for the registration of FIRs and the investigation of all cases related to human trafficking.
Each AHTU will be comprised of an inspector, two sub-inspectors, two head constables and two constables.
