On way to madrasas, 59 kids ‘rescued’; 5 men sent to judicial custody

The 59 “rescued” children — in the age group of eight to 17 — have been lodged in shelter homes in Nashik and Bhusawal (Jalgaon) for the past 12 days.

While the GRP accused the five of child trafficking, the parents of the children said they had sent them willingly.

On May 30, acting on information that a number of children were allegedly being trafficked for child labour, officials of the RPF searched the Danapur-Pune Express train at Bhusawal, where they found 29 children in coaches S-10 and S-11. The children were handed over to the GRP, and Mohammed Anjur Alam, a resident of Sangli who was accompanying them, was arrested.

The train was again searched when it reached Manmad station (Nashik), where the RPF “rescued” 30 children from coaches S-1, S-2, S-10 and S-11 along with four men accompanying them – Saddam Hussain Siddiqui, 23, Noman Alam Siddiqui, 28, Ezaj Ziyabbul Siddiqui, 40, and Mohammed Shahnawaz Haroon, 22 – all hailing from Bihar’s Araria.

The RPF claims that when enquired, the children and the five men said they were headed to Sangli and Pune, where the children were to be enrolled in madrasas. The RPF, however, said the five men could not furnish any documentary proof of parental consent. Subsequently, they were handed over to the GRP, who filed two FIRs against them under Sections 370 (buying or disposing of any person as slave) and 34 (criminal act done in furtherance of the common intention of all) of the IPC.

The parents of the children, local Muslim activists and AIMIM MLA from Malegaon, Mufti Ismail, have questioned the arrests and the detention.

In the days since the incident, some of the parents have travelled to Nashik to seek the release of their children, spending their time outside the Nashik child shelter home and the office of the Manmad railway police.

Amna Ezaz Shaikh’s husband Ezaz Shaikh is among those arrested and her nine-year-old son among those sent to the Nashik shelter home in Nashik. “We sent our children here of our own will. My husband was accompanying them as we wanted to get our son admitted to a madrassa in Pune,” said Amna, 29, cradling her younger child.

Mohamed Waris, 35, a labourer from Arariya whose two minor sons are among the 59 detained, has been spending the last few days on the railway platform and under flyovers and rail overbridges in Nashik. “My younger son was to start his education this year. He was accompanying his elder brother who started his talim at a Sangli madrasa last year. Now they have taken away both my children. There is no question of trafficking. The RPF or GRP should have first checked with us. They didn’t even bother to call us. My wife has been crying non-stop since she heard the news,” Waris said.

“The reason we sent our children to Maharashtra is because the facilities here are a lot better than what they are back home. Every parent wants good education for their children,” said Abdul Kareem, the relative of one of the children. Saddam Hussain Siddiqui is originally from Araria but teaches in a Pune madrassa. The family of the 23-year-old, who is among those arrested, said he has in the past similarly brought children from Araria to enroll them at the madrassa, but has never faced any trouble.

Advocate Niyaz Lodhi, who is representing the accused, claimed that the GRP has erred in booking the men and sending the children to the shelter home. “They were supposed to first verify the information and then make a case based on the cognisable material collected. But they first made the case and then did the verification,” Lodhi said.

Lodhi said that among the children who have been taken to the shelter home are eight to nine of them who were previously studying at the Pune madrassa and were returning for the new academic session after the summer break.

The GRP said that while there was no evidence yet of trafficking, the men accompanying the children could not provide proof that the children were travelling with the consent of their parents. “Our preliminary inquiry shows that the parents had willingly sent them, but there was no written acknowledgment of the same when the RPF and GRP stopped and questioned them. Hence, the action was taken based on the RPF’s complaint,” said GRP Manmad Inspector Sharad Jogdand.

AIMIM’s Malegaon MLA Mohammed Ismail Abdul Khalique, who took up the matter, said, “In our country, students are free to go anywhere and study whatever they want to. In this case, the children were going with their parents’ consent to madrasas in Sangli and Pune. But the law enforcement agencies detained them unnecessarily and arrested five innocent persons without having any substantial ground for their involvement in any kind of child trafficking.”

When asked if the RPF officials had followed due diligence of preliminary verification of information before lodging the FIRs in the matter, RPF Divisional Security Commissioner (DSC), Bhusawal, H Shrinivas Rao, said, “We did not get any satisfactory answers from the suspect persons. They did not possess any document. So for further course of investigation and action, we handed them over to the GRP.”