BENGALURU: Eight boys, sent from Bihar to Bengaluru, to be allegedly hired as child labourers, have been rescued by the Government Railway Police (GRP) through an undercover operation onboard the Danapur Express from Bangarpet to Krantivira Sangolli Rayanna (Bengaluru City) railway stations.
An FIR has been registered on Friday evening at the KSR railway station against three individuals for trafficking and those rescued have been handed over to the Child Welfare Committee.
The FIR, booked at the GRP station at KSR railway station names Krishna Sahani and Mohan Sahaniya of Motiphari, both from Bihar and Jithendra, employed at a factory in Hassan. They have been booked under Sections 363 and 370 of IPC.
The racket was blown off following a tip-off from the Bihar unit members of `Bachpan Bachao Andolan’ (a nationwide movement started by Nobel laureate Kailash Satyarthi for the rights of children) to their colleagues here about the train arriving in Bengaluru on July 6. They alerted ChildLine and the GRP.
A covert operation involving the organisations and cops was planned immediately. “We were allowed onboard the train at Bangarpet around 2.25 pm on Tuesday with a 14-strong GRP team, a majority of them women constables in civilian clothes, and went around all bogies interacting with the passengers. Eight children were found accompanied by adults, who were not immediate family members. The children gave us the contact numbers of their fathers, who claimed the children were sent to Bengaluru for sightseeing,” D G Sumathi of the Andolan’s Bengaluru branch told TNIE.
“The reason given is false and in many cases, we understand that the family is involved in pushing the children into the workforce,” she said.
Two children were accompanied by their fathers and one kid had proof to show he was above 18 and so we could not do anything, she added.
En route to Bengaluru, 12 children onboard the train were deboarded at Vijayawada railway station by the GRP there for similar reasons, she added. Sub Inspector of Bengaluru Cantonment station Bharati led the operation.
GRP SP Siri Gowri told The New Indian Express that fake Aadhar cards were sometimes created in the case of many children to traffick them.