The Kids Aren't Alright
Why are children from Bihar and Jharkhand catching the train to God's own country? Jeemon Jacob uncovers the sordid racket of child trafficking in the name of charity
2014-06-14 , Issue 24 Volume 11
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Stranded Policemen note down the details of the children trafficked from Jharkhand
Foul play Orphanages in Kerala are using trafficked children to garner state funding
I want to go back home," whispers Hazeena as she stares out of the window. Nearby, a group of children talk among themselves in hushed tones. Their faces are filled with gloom and eyes flash with fear. They don't want to answer any questions. Little do they know that they have kicked up a political storm in Kerala.
Neither Hazeena, 8, who hails from a nondescript village in Jharkhand's Godda district, nor the other 167 children feel at home inside the large campus of the Noorul Huda Orphanage in Palakkad. They are tired after the long journey and fed up of answering inquisitive strangers.
The drama began on 24 May, when the Patna-Ernakulam Express screeched to a halt at the Palakkad Railway Station. A batch of 455 children under the age of 12, accompanied by 33 adults, stepped out. At the exit gate, the Railway Police detained the children and their caretakers as many were travelling without tickets.
When the Railway Police issued a fine of 1.27 lakh for ticketless travelling, the caretakers paid up. On further questioning, they spilled the beans. The children hailed from Bihar and Jharkhand and they were on their way to join the Mukkam Muslim Orphanage in Kozhikode district. Suspecting foul play, the Railway Police produced the children before the Child Welfare Committee, which sent them to local orphanages.
As the caretakers were unable to provide valid documents for transporting the children, the police registered a case of child trafficking under Section 370(5) of the Indian Penal Code. On the suspicion of smuggling minors, the police arrested four people — Moulana Faidullah, 26, and Abdul Haji Ansari, 32, both residents of Bhagalpur in Bihar, and Muhammed Alamgir, 24, of Godda and Muhammed Idrish Alam, 31, of Khola in Jharkhand. However, three other caretakers managed to escape.
The very next day, a batch of 123 children from Malda district in West Bengal arrived with four caretakers in the Thiruvananthapuram-bound Guwahati Express. The Railway Police detained and interrogated them. Later, they were produced before the Child Welfare Committee, which sent them to a different orphanage in Kozhikode.
The preliminary investigation revealed that the children were headed to the Anwarul Huda Orphanage, located at Vettathur in Malappuram district. Just like the previous batch, they had no valid documents to prove their claims.
The caretakers revealed that 64 out of the 123 children were already studying at the AMUP School in Vettathur, which is run by the Anwarul Huda Orphanage, and 59 children were going to join the orphanage in the new academic year. All the children were under the age of 14.
The new batch of 59 children who had come to join the orphanage were carrying certificates issued by their panchayat presidents and village officers and photocopies of their parents' electoral ID cards.
Soon, the manager of the Anwarul Huda Orphanage appeared before the Child Welfare Committee with his lawyer and demanded the release of the children. Established in 1998, the Anwarul Huda Orphanage is run by the Sunni Yuvajana Sangam.
'We Can't Turn A Blind Eye Towards The Violation Of Child Rights'
| FATHER JOSE PAUL, CHAIRMAN, CHILD WELFARE COMMITTEE, PALAKKADDISTRICT
But the officials refused to budge and asked the government to conduct a detailed investigation regarding the child trafficking. On 26 May, 48 children were released after their parents produced valid certificates.
As the Railway Police invoked the anti-trafficking clause in the FIR, the orphanage managements sensed trouble. They started to put pressure on the state government with the help of the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), which is an ally of theCongress- led UDF government.
Initially, IUML leader and Social Welfare Minister MK Muneer tried to justify the orphanages' moves. But Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala took a hard stand against the IUML's bid to dilute the trafficking charges.
"I will not interfere in the investigation into the Palakkad incident," Chennithala told TEHELKA. "I have directed the Crime Branch to probe the case and submit its report within a week. The investigation is going on and I am awaiting the report. We will initiate action based on the report."
Angry IUML leaders hit back at his remark that "orphanages worried about poor children in Bihar, West Bengal and Jharkhand should do charity work in those states rather than bringing them to Kerala to fill the orphanages".
The Kerala Police's intelligence wing, which has been tracking similar cases, had recently submitted a report about agents who are trafficking poor children from other states to Kerala. The police suspect that a well-oiled network is canvassing parents to send their children to Kerala.
"Children belonging to poor families from other states were brought in as orphans and admitted to various orphanages run by charity organisations across Kerala," says the intelligence report. "These orphanages are registered under the Charitable Society Act and recognised by the Board of Control of Orphanages and other Charitable Homes and are receiving a monthly grant of Rs 900 per child from the social welfare department. The orphanages are bringing children from other states to claim the grant and list them as destitute children from Kerala. The state government is losing a huge amount of money in this regard every year. So, a multi -level investigation is needed to check the menace."
The report adds that many orphanages are also running government-aided schools and the shortage of students in those schools have forced them to cut teaching staff.
"In order to create more teaching posts, they bring children from other states and enrol them in their schools," says the report. "As the posts are auctioned to the highest bidder, each one can fetch as much as 10 lakh for a primary school teacher and 20 lakh for a higher secondary school teacher. In aided schools, the government pays the salaries of all the staff members."
Interestingly, TEHELKA found that both the Mukkam Muslim Orphanage and Anwarul Huda Orphanage brought children from other states for enrolment in their schools where the medium of instruction is Malayalam.
A cursory glance at the ID cards issued by the Anwarul Huda Orphanage, which also runs the AMUP School at Koduvathur in Malappuram, is enough to expose the tricks used to inflate the number of students. The cards don't indicate in which class the student is studying.
"None of the ID cards indicate which class the student is admitted to or studying in," says M Binu, the Railway Police inspector who detained the children. "We suspect that it has been done deliberately as the children can be put in any class where the number of students is falling short."
In another trick, the card issued to Emmadul Haque, son of Ishank, who resides at Chanchal in West Bengal's Malda district, has the details of his father's residential address and cell phone number. The card issued to Injamamaul Haque, son of MD Najrul Islam, also bears the same residential address and cell phone number.
On top of that, the phone number listed on the ID card was found to be that of the Government Higher Secondary School in Vettathur. When TEHELKA contacted the school authorities on the telephone number (04933 245704), the headmistress in charge, Beena, confirmed that the number belonged to the government school.
Beena adds that though many inmates from Anwarul Huda Orphanage are studying there, no student from other states was studying in the high school classes.
The destitute certificates produced by the orphanages from Jharkhand and Bengal indicate that they were forged, as around 30 destitute certificates issued by different village officers have the same handwriting.
Initial probes show that the destitute certificates issued by the village officers are fake, says Manish Sinha, assistant director of the labour department in Jharkhand.
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