The Hindu : Front Page : Child, labourer put in Beggars’ Home

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Tuesday, Feb 23, 2010
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Child, labourer put in Beggars’ Home

Staff Reporter

One nabbed at traffic junction, the other at the bus-stand on her way home

— Photo: K. Gopinathan

Gangamma and Sharada Hampaiah

Bangalore: Even as it has launched a campaign to eradicate beggary in the State, the State Social Welfare Department has kept in wrongful custody at least two persons who are not beggars — a seven-year-old child and a flood victim from Kurdi village in Raichur district — at the Beggars’ Rehabilitation Centre at Sumanahalli on Magadi Road.

This came to light when presspersons visited the home at the launch of the campaign on Monday.

The child, Gangamma, was picked up by authorities at a traffic junction in Hebbal after her mother fled the Beggars’ Home. The child has been at the home for the past three days, separated from her family, in “violation of her rights” according to Vasudev Sharma, member, Commission for Protection of Child Rights. All in tears as she peered from behind the locked door of her dormitory, little Gangamma said, “I was selling dolls at the junction. These people thought I was begging and brought me here. I am studying in second standard. I want to go back to my house.”

Sharada Hampaiah, whose house was washed away during the recent floods, had come to the city along with others from her village looking for work as a construction labourer. “When I got the news of my daughter’s delivery, I decided to go and see her,” she said. She was waiting to board a bus at the Majestic terminus when the Beggars’ Home staff took her into custody. “I want to see my daughter,” a sobbing Ms. Hampaiah told The Hindu.

When Mr. Sharma and his team later visited the home, Gangamma had been hastily bundled off to a Peenya-based NGO. “This is again a gross violation of the law as she was not produced before the Child Welfare Committee,” he told The Hindu.

Earlier, C.N. Manje Gowda, Chairperson, Central Relief Committee, said he did not know who had brought the child there. He also asked his staff to contact Ms. Hampaiah’s people and release her.

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