NGO blows lid off beggar mafia in Bangalore

A beggar mafia is thriving on children living in the city’s outskirts.
Every morning, these children are brought in trains and dropped at specific points to beg on the streets of Bangalore.

In the evening, they are picked up again with the collections and dropped in the city’s outskirts, investigations by a city-based NGO found.

“A team of volunteers posted at bus stands and railway
stations followed the case for a few days. They even documented their (children’s) movements which were confirmed later,” said Fr George, executive director of Bosco which works for the rehabilitation of street children.

The non-governmental organisation (NGO) stumbled upon the gang while working on phase II of the anti-beggary drive which also involved the police, the state department of women and child development and other NGOs.

Bosco is waiting for more evidence before getting the gang arrested.

“We’ve decided to collect more evidence before approaching the police for further investigation to get these children rescued and rehabilitated,” Fr George said.

Earlier, during the drive, the department officials, police and NGOs had rescued 134 persons, including 49 women, who were found begging on the streets along with children. Since then, their focus was on the mafia.

The rescued women, along with the children, were sent to the Beggars Colony after taking their blood samples for DNA tests.

Compared with phase I of the anti-beggary drive, the latest campaign was well planned and focused on west and north divisions of the city.

According to the plan, five teams, each comprising police
personnel, employees of the department of women and child development, NGO volunteers and a medical officer, identified a point and videographed women and children begging on the streets.

Since the focus was on women forcing minors into begging, an FIR was filed against them under the Beggary Act. This was followed by a detailed investigation to ascertain whether each child belonged to a woman or was part of the begging mafia, said a police officer involved in the operation.

The majority of women who were rounded up hailed from Andhra Pradesh.

However, the children aged between 10 and 15 found begging alone were from Pavagada of Tumkur district in Karnataka.

The NGOs were entrusted with the task of initiating a social investigation to ascertain the cause of begging and to rehabilitate the children by providing them education, the officer said.
Joint commissioner of police Pranob Mohanty, a nodal officer of this operation, is documenting the project to help other cities to take up similar campaigns.

Forget about the mafia. Even parents driven by poverty and promised by middle men with earnings force their children to beg on the streets.

Usually, children between two and eight years of age are targeted. Many of them are abducted. They are later given lessons in begging to invoke the sympathy of passers-by.

In the case of babies who are too young to learn, women who carry them in their arms pinch them to make them cry to tug at the heart strings of people.

The mafia often goes to the extremes by disfiguring the children with acid or amputating their limbs to draw the attention of people.
A study conducted by Child Welfare Committee (CWC) reveals that each child earns over Rs100 a day while the aged beggars can earn up to Rs500.