Lucknow: When Child Rights Protection Commission member Suchita Chaturvedi reached the state children's home in the capital, children between the ages of 6 and 14 “rescued” by the authorities while being “trafficked” from Bihar to Uttar Pradesh started crying in front of her. Officials said that the over 90 children rescued by them have told them about their unwillingness to be transported to UP on the pretext of Madrasa education.
“Someone said that he did not want to study in the madrasa and wanted to become a doctor. No one can become a doctor from a madrasa,” the official said. The children hailing from Araria and Purnia in Bihar were taken into protective custody on Friday while the five clerics were transporting them to Deoband in Saharanpur in UP.
‘Funds Withdrawn by Declaring Children as Orphans’: State Child Rights Protection Commission member Dr. Suchita Chaturvedi said that the two madrasas to which the children were being taken, Madarul Uloom Rafiqiya and Dare Arqam in Deoband, are not registered with the government. The operators of these madrasas used to take funding by declaring the children as orphans, the officer said. “They used to bring most of the children from Bihar in the name of providing them education and then kept them like animals in a small madrasa,” Chaturvedi said.
‘Controversial Consent Letters’: Dr. Suchita Chaturvedi said that the children “rescued” from Ayodhya “expressed their pain by crying”. “The children said that they were snatched from their parents in the name of providing them education. The Maulvis made the family members sign an undertaking that they will not be responsible in case of the death of the children. Apart from this, in case of illness, medicines were given only when the family members sent money,” she said.
Dr. Suchita said that these children have many siblings and all of them used to study in government schools. Maulvis of Madarul Uloom Rafiqiya and Dare Arqam Mardaso reached their village and took the family members with them by deceiving them, she said.
