40 madrasa students forced to spend a month in govt. home for no fault of theirs

Bengaluru, Sep 3: For nearly a month, as over 40 children – all of them from a madrasa here – created a ruckus in the Government Boys’ Home, their parents and guardians ran from pillar to post to convince officials that their wards were not being trafficked.

Surprisingly, as officials shifted the children from Chennai – where they had been detained on August 8 – to the city, the parents were informed nearly a week later. It was only on Monday that the children were finally reunited with their parents .

The children, who were returning from Bihar where they had gone for Ramzan vacations, were detained by the Railway police in Chennai on August 8. The children, who are aged between 10 and 12, were admitted by their parents (most of them daily wage labourers) in a madrasa in Bengaluru where they were receiving free education and boarding. The guardian, who was accompanying them, was detained and grilled, and due to language issues, suspicions of child labour racket or human trafficking persisted.

While the madrasa sought time to produce documents – which had to be brought from Bengaluru and Bihar – the children were shifted to Bengaluru Government Boys’ Home on August 8 without their relatives being informed about it.

“We didn’t even know where our children where. Some told us Chennai, others said they were taken back to Bihar,” said Kaleemulla Khan, a relative of one of the boys.

For five days, the parents waited anxiously for information. “It was only when one of the parents went to Chennai police that he was informed about the whereabouts of his child. For nearly a week we didn’t even know where our children were,” said Mr. Khan.

Even then, it took the parents much more time to convince the Child Welfare Committee that they were their bonafide parents. The frustration had built up to such a point that Riyaz Ahmed, a parent, said they staged a protest before the CWC on Monday “We are only labourers, and we do not have many documents with us,” he said.

A member of the CWC said: “It is up to us to inform parents only after an initial probe can confirm that it is not trafficking. We have done our duty as per the rule.”