14 children rescued while being trafficked to fulfill labour shortage woes

New delhi: After the Delhi Commission for the Protection of Child Rights anticipated a surge in child labour following labour shortages triggered in the big cities like Delhi due to the pandemic; the Delhi Police has now rescued 14 children who were trafficked from Bihar to work in Delhi-NCR, Haryana and Punjab. Police said they have also arrested 10 people involved in the case who reached Delhi by train and all of them had confirmed railway tickets.

Police said that due to the shortage of labourers in factories as a consequence of the pandemic and the subsequent lockdown, they saw an opportunity to traffick the children to work as labourers in the factories as there had been a high demand for labour. They used to target poor families in Bihar and promised them jobs and supplied their children to different places for child labour.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (Railways) Harendra Singh said they received information from an NGO on September 7 about 14 minors being trafficked and brought to Delhi on the Mahananda Express Train from different districts of Bihar.

A team was formed to keep tabs on the railway station. After some time few suspects were noticed with the juveniles. "Finally, ten persons were detained and 14 children accompanying them were rescued. These children were medically examined and taken to a quarantine centre in Lajpat Nagar. They were produced before the Child Welfare Committee (CWC) through video conferencing. Based on their statements before the committee, a case was registered and the ten accused persons were arrested," he said.

Police identified the accused as Mohammad Akbar (35), Mohammad Manzoor Alam (25), Naushad (26), Tasuvil (30), Mohammad Naseem (35), Aman Kumar Sharma(21), Noor Alam (32), Mohammad Mehraj (24), Maskhur Alam (23) and Mahesh Lal Kewat (33).

As per investigators, these children belong to different districts of Bihar, Katihar, Begusarai, Kishanganj, and Purnia. They had planned to take these children to different places, four children to Azadpur, Delhi, two to Seelampur, Delhi, two to Faridabad, Haryana and six to Punjab. Investigators told Millennium Post that the children knew that they were being taken to work inside small factories.

Recently, the DCPCR held several meetings related to eradicating child labour from Delhi. In one of the meetings, the child rights body had told agricultural produce market committees (APMCs) to ensure that transporters and vendors they work with should not be employing children. In another meeting with the Delhi government, Delhi Police, the DCPCR has focused on availability of more data on child labour in Delhi. In fact, the meetings with these officials also found that many children who are rescued are unable to receive government compensation or other financial help due to a lot of information about the children missing which leads to complications in opening a bank account.