14 held over child labour, 19 rescued
Fourteen persons accompanying 19 minor children in the 15267 Benares to Lokmanya Tilak Terminus (LTT) train were caught at Thane station by the Railway Police Force (RPF). Police suspect that the kids, all from Bihar, were brought into the city as cheap labour. The case has been handed over to Thane Government Railway Police (GRP).
GRP arrested the 14 accused who were produced in court and remanded to police custody till June 16. “After we got a tip-off from RPF, GRP officials laid a trap to arrest the accused and rescued the 19 children. There are a total 15 accused but one among them is at large and we are searching for him,” said a GRP official.
The accused were coming from Motihari in Bihar. “We think the children’s parents knew about the accused and why the children were being taken to Mumbai. We are trying to contact the parents and will soon reach them. Meanwhile, we have kept the children in homes in Thane and Navi Mumbai and are searching for another wanted accused who escaped,” the GRP official said.
Initially, RPF had laid a trap at LTT station but at the very last moment, the train was terminated at Thane itself, as informed by Pratham Foundation, a NGO at the forefront of such cases. Navnath Kamble, programme associate, Pratham, said, “We had received information from our team in Bihar that 60 kids were being brought to Mumbai for child labour. We immediately informed the RPF and GRP. However, many kids de-boarded the Benares-LTT train at Nashik and other places where a case has been registered by the GRP under the Juvenile Justice Act.”