Babies among rescued child beggars embarrass city police

On Friday, Chennai police rescued nearly 76 children from the menace. But they are being bombarded with queries now by the Social Defence Department and Child Welfare Committee about the infants, who still depend on their mothers for feeding. The police have arrested the mothers of such children and put them behind bars during the drive. 

According to police sources, the Child Welfare Committee has cross checked the claims of the custodians of the children and confirmed them to be either their parent or guardian when they admitted the children to the government homes. 

“They have checked the identify cards, birth certificate or any other valid document that proved them to be the parents of these children. However, we could only act as per the law as Section 76 of Juvenile Justice (care and protection) Act 2016, says anyone who use children for begging is punishable with Rs 1 lakh fine and imprisonment up to 5 years,” a senior police official told DT Next.

The Social Defence Department officials have been calling the police to find a solution to the problem as the toddlers could not be kept away from their mothers. 

“We could not help in this and our brief is to consider these children as orphans. The accused have been denying rights to the children for a decent life and education and are offenders in the eyes of the law. So, we have registered FIRs under Section 76 of Juvenile Justice (care and protection) Act against all those picked up during the drive on Friday and have remanded them,” the police officer added.

He also said that none of the children rescued during the drive were missing children or kidnapped ones. CWC has done extensive checks to rule this out. 

“They are going by the documents carried by the so-called parents. There is no system available to check whether these documents are genuine or not. It is unfortunate that these children have to stay away from their parents for no fault of theirs,” the official added. 

City police sources said the drive against child begging was a one-day special programme, which got concluded on Friday. “We were asked to do it only for a day,” the official added.