Seven adolescent boys from West Bengal, Odisha and Bihar who had travelled to Tamil Nadu apparently in search of jobs in the State, were stopped by officers of the Crime Prevention and Detection Squad (CPDS) of the Railway Protection Force (RPF) at Tiruchi railway station on Saturday.
According to a statement by RPF, Duty Officer G. Sridhar and his team saw the seven youth behaving in a ‘suspicious manner’ when they alighted rom Howrah-Tiruchi Express on platform No. 6 around 4 a.m. When questioned, the boys, in the age group of 14-16 years, said they hoped to get jobs in factories and mills in Tiruppur and nearby towns.
They were handed over to coordinating officials of Childline, which presented them before the Child Welfare Committee. Once the details of the youths were collected, and they were provided professional counselling, they would be sent to a shelter for a temporary period before returning to their hometowns, said a social worker familiar with the case.