Child worker found chained in Delhi eatery, rescued

NEW DELHI - A child labourer, who was trafficked from his home in Bihar to Delhi, was found chained and working in a roadside restaurant here. He was later rescued by the labour department and a child rights NGO.

R.S. Chaurasia of the Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA), the NGO that assisted the rescue mission, Thursday said in a statement that the boy went missing from his native village in Katihar district of Bihar in August 2009 before being found at an eatery in central Delhi this month.

“After weeks of running from pillar to post, his father Sohrab Ali came to know that the boy had been trafficked to Delhi. Despite endless visits to police stations, he could not file his complaint. Finally he came to Delhi and approached some government authority and a complaint was filed with the task force on child labour Jan 6,” Chaurasia said.

“BBA came to know about the case and we assisted them in the hunt. Finally we found the child in a dhaba here. He was chained and still working in the bitter cold,” he added.

The rescued boy said: “I was working in this dhaba for the last three months. One day the dhaba owner accused me of stealing Rs.50,000 from his home and started torturing me physically.

“A fortnight ago, he decided to chain me. I could move in the radius of one metre only and worked for more than 15 hours a day with hardly any protection from the cold. Police personnel kept coming to the dhaba, but did nothing to rescue me. Even people saw me like this everyday but nobody did anything,” he added.

Chaurasia said: “A child found chained in the heart of national capital is a serious issue. It goes to show how little concern we have for children of our society. We have completed the legal formalities and would ensure that the employer does not go unpunished.”