Jharkhand, Bihar and West Bengal will join an investigation initiated by the railway police into the alleged trafficking of 589 children from the three States to orphanages in north Kerala. Kerala has said that the State Crime Branch will take over the investigation.
A team of five senior labour officers has already arrived here from Jharkhand. They confirmed on Sunday that the children were victims of child trafficking. Bihar and West Bengal officials are expected in a few days.
The children, reportedly from poor families, were detained by the railway police as they arrived at the Palakkad Junction railway station in two batches on May 24 and 25.
Eight persons were arrested under Section 370(5) of the Indian Penal Code on the charge of trafficking in children below the age of 12. The first batch, which reached Palakkad by the Patna-Ernakulam Express, comprised 466 children from Bihar and Jharkhand.
The second batch of 123 children came from West Bengal and was detained when they reached the station by the Guwahati-Thiruvananthapuram Express.
Those who brought the children claimed that they were inmates of the Mukkam Muslim Orphanage in Kozhikode.
The second batch too was headed for an orphanage at Vettathur in Malappuram district.
The children are now temporarily sheltered in various welfare homes under the supervision of the Kerala State Commission for Protection of Child Rights.
Kerala officials said they expected officials from West Bengal and Bihar in the coming days to discuss the rehabilitation of the children.
The Jharkhand team, led by Labour Enforcement Officer Manish Sinha, took evidence from the children and when interacting with the media, expressed their disagreement with the claims of the orphanages that the children were brought to Kerala to provide them better living standards and education.
The Jharkhand Labour Commissioner, they said, would reach Palakkad on Monday to decide further on the future of the children and to initiate action against the “middlemen” who had brought children here by paying their parents small sums of money.
Published - June 02, 2014 02:22 am IST
