Harrowing tales of children rescued from begging

“For our convenience, we have divided the rescued children into three categories - infants (those below five years of age), children above five years of age and adults (above 18 years of age),” said a police officer. They worked in three shifts - morning, evening and night. There is yet another category called corporate beggars, who beg in and around corporate offices and malls, he added.

A majority of them earned anywhere between Rs 200 and Rs 300 per day. They gave their earnings either to their parents, to help them repay their debts, or to the handlers.

Abject poverty back home forced children and adults from as far as Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh to come to Bangalore and engage in begging. Those from Andhra Pradesh managed the show easily in Bangalore as they learnt Kannada quickly, the police added.

The beggars rescued were those begging in the morning shift. The police will soon raid more places to rescue those begging in the evening and night shifts. Most of the beggars operated in different places each day, said the police.

In many cases, the mothers used to hand over their children to the handlers and go to work. The handlers would come in the evening, leave the children at their homes, give the mothers some money and go away. Such children used to weep and quarrel with their mothers later on.

The mothers would feed them with a high dose of cough syrup or other medicines to put them to so sleep, the officer said. In some cases, the parents of rescued children expressed utter shock on knowing that their children had been pressed into begging.