Delhi Police rescue 26 child labourers
The children, who hail from Motihari in Bihar, were forced into bonded labour.
New Delhi: As many as 26 minors were rescued in a raid carried out by the Anand Vihar railway police, along with an NGO, SDM Seelampur and the labour officer, on Thursday. The children, who hail from Motihari in Bihar, were forced into bonded labour. They were working in various industries in inhuman conditions.
The police has also arrested one of the owners of the factory who was identified as Kalaam. Kalaam has three brothers — Rustam, Irshad, and Shamshaad. According to preliminary report, Irshad used to traffic the children. The police os on the lookout for the other three brothers. The children were working in Rustom’s factory. In a joint effort, the teams carried out raid in Brahampuri and rescued the children.
The rescue operation was carried out on Thursday after an NGO, run by Don Bosco, noticed six children sitting quietly at the Anand Vihar railway station. They looked scared. When one of the officials approached the children and made them comfortable by interacting with them politely, they revealed the horror.
According to the officials, the children were brought to Delhi by the accused around six months ago after misleading the families of the children and forced them into child labour. They were placed in a jeans packing factory in Brahampuri in Seelampur. They were kept under inhuman conditions and were not given proper food even.
The children further told the officials that they were made to work for over 22 hours without food and basic necessities. “They used to make us work from 7 am of a day to 5 am of the next day. Whenever we made any mistake, the employer hit us with a hammer,” said one of the rescued children.
Taking a serious note of the situation, the officials swung into action and informed their higher-ups. Based on the credible inputs given by the rescued children that there are other kids working over there, an immediate rescue operation was carried out on Thursday with the consent of the SDM and the labour officer of Seelampur. “We rescued another 20 children from the same condition. On Friday, all the children were produced before the Child Welfare Committee (CWC) and referred to Mukti Ashram. Two factories were sealed and one of the employers was arrested,” said an official.
An FIR was registered with the jurisdictional police against the owners of the factory and the traffickers under Section 370 (trafficking of persons) of the IPC, the Bonded Labour (Abolition) Act 1976, and the Juvenile Justice (care and protection of children) Act 2015.