Fifteen children, including three girls, who were being ‘used for a fake scholarship racket’ were rescued by the police on Tuesday. The children have been produced before the Child Welfare Committee (CWC).
The Yelahanka New Town police have arrested three persons — Lokesh Naik (in-charge officer of Bright Seva Foundation Trust), Revana Siddeshwara and Siddagangamma, who is a teacher at a school for the differently-abled — in connection with the case.
A majority of the children are differently-abled and were part of the residential school in Yelahanka where Siddagangamma worked.
According to the police, the modus operandi of the accused was to ‘hire’ children from slums and rope in minors from the residential institution for differently-abled children.
These children would be presented before people at functions and programmes as beneficiaries of free education, and money would be collected from donors. They would allegedly take the same set of children to various places, collecting money in their names. “They took advantage of parents from poor backgrounds,” a police officer said.
Naik and Siddeshwara ran the racket with the help of Siddagangamma, who helped them take the children away from the school whenever they organised programmes to collect donations.
