Orphanages across Kerala have come under the scanner with the High Court initiating suo motu case on Monday against alleged child trafficking in the State in the context of the trafficking of hundreds of children from North Indian states to orphanages run by Muslim organizations in northern Kerala without proper documents in May this year.
A division bench comprising Acting Chief Justice Ashok Bhushan and Justice AM Shafeeq directed the Kerala Government to submit a comprehensive report on the number and conduct of the orphanages in the State within four weeks. The court refused to grant the request of State Advocate General KP Dandapani for more time to file the report.
As per the court directive, the Government will have to furnish details of all the orphanages functioning in the State, the number of children in these orphanages, the number of children brought from other states and how and from where these children were being brought. The court will now take up the case after receiving the Government's report.
The court registered the case on the basis of reports in the media and the report of its own registrar's office. It resorted to this move due to the various discrepancies and the mystery behind the incident of transferring of hundreds of children from North Indian states to the orphanages in Kerala in May last.
There are two cases - one seeking a CBI probe and the other praying for adequate security for the children - pending before the High Court in connection with the child-trafficking incident of May which is currently being probed by a special team of the Kerala Police's Crime Branch. The CBI has already expressed its willingness to take up the probe into the incident.
The Railway Protection Force had on May 24 detained from the Palakkad Railway Station 568 children belonging to the 10-to-14-year age group as they were being brought to Kerala by train from Jharkhand, Bihar and West Bengal. Neither the children nor those who were accompanying them had possessed the documents required for transferring the children.
The children were being brought to the Mohammad Abdurahiman Memorial Orphanage at Mukkom, Kozhikode and Anwar'ul Huda Orphanage at Vettathoor, Malappuram. Eight persons were arrested in connection with the incident then. The police had seized forged documents and fake seals of Jharkhand Revenue officials and offices.
Though the Crime Branch had registered a case for human trafficking and the Home Minister had supported the action, the Congress-led UDF Government, in which the Muslim league is a major constituent, stuck to its position that this was not a case of human trafficking though there were some procedural problems in the transfer of the children.
Parents of many of the children brought from these states had said that they had given consent for their transfer hoping that they would get quality education and good accommodation in the Kerala orphanages. Most of them had said that they were unable to provide their children with good food and education due to their impoverished backgrounds.
The Crime Branch of the Jharkhand Police had concluded that the incident was one of human trafficking. Though the High Court itself had in July proposed a CBI probe into the incident considering its inter-state nature, the Kerala Government opposed it saying that the current Crime Branch probe was progressing satisfactorily.
The special team of the Crime Branch has already told the court that the management of the Muslim orphanage in Mukkom, Kozhikode had resorted to trafficking children from other states in order to avoid division fall in its school due to shortage of students which could lead to stoppage or decrease in flow of funds to the institution.