Bengaluru: As many as 164 children have been rescued by the Bengaluru police in an special special drive undertaken on Friday.
In a joint operation by Bengaluru police and Child rights workers, 264 beggars were rescued in which 164 were children and 25 were infants. Few children were below two years of age.
Additional Commissioner P Harisekharan said, “They are mostly from Andhra and other states and a few of them are from Tamil Nadu as well. We have got doctors to check if anyone was drugged or any child has been harmed physically, anyone been abused. We are doing DNA test as well. If it turns out that they aren’t related, or any kidnap cases, we will have to book a criminal case.”
The police are observing from the last three months how these children operate at traffic junctions, beg on the roadside trying to get sympathy of the passerby. At least 30 to 40 per cent are repeat offenders.
We have only been able to rescue half of the child beggars who operate in the city and rest of them are likely to have escaped after adults got to know about the police crackdown.
Police are also probing who forced these children into begging and how they were forced into in, as it seems like an organised racket. Besides, police are also readying an action plan in the coming weeks to follow up with these children to ensure they don’t get trapped into the beggary trade yet again.
The rescued children will be presented before the state child welfare committee for counselling, Additional Commissioner said.