The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : NGO claims to have rescued child labourer

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Nov 04, 2005

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

NGO claims to have rescued child labourer

Staff Reporter

Parents say the child was brought to city to send to school

ALL SMILES: Jyothi after being `freed' from a house at Dilsukhnagar on Thursday. - Photo: P.V. Sivakumar

HYDERABAD: A local NGO, Human Rights Law Network (HRLN), claimed to have rescued a domestic child labourer from a house in Madhurapuri Colony in Dilsukhnagar on Thursday.

However, parents of the child, seven-year-old Jyothi, and the house-owners, have refuted the NGO's claims and say the child was brought from her village in Nalgonda to be sent to a school in the city.

The Saroornagar police have registered a case and are investigating.

House `raided'

Earlier in the day, HRLN activists led by Sujatha Chityala, along with a constable from the Saroornagar police station, "raided" the house of Prabhakar Reddy, an engineer working in Jagityal.

Denial

Though Mr. Reddy's wife Swarna and the child's parents, Boja Naik and Laxmi, who were also present in the house, denied that the child was working as a servant there, the activists said they had been observing the house and the child after they received a phone call four days ago complaining about children being made to work in the house.

Letter from parents

Ms. Chityala said the police had agreed to take a letter from the child's parents binding them to send the child to school.

If the letter was not given, the police would send the child to a residential school, she added.

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