In crackdown on child labour, 17 kids rescued in Udaipur village

JAIPUR: The Udaipur police rescued 17 children on Thursday when they were being taken to Gujarat for working in cotton fields, officials said.

This is the first action after chief minister Ashok Gehlot issued instructions for effective steps to check child labour and child trafficking from three districts bordering Gujarat.

The CM reviewed measures to check these in Dungarpur, Banswara and Udaipur districts after a vernacular daily’s sting operation showing auction of children between 5 and 16 years in villages in these three districts on the border of Gujarat.

According to the 2017 report of National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB), Rajasthan is on top for human trafficking. The 2011 census ranked the state third in India for child labourers. The census said 850,000 children below 14 years were child labourers in Rajasthan.

Udaipur superintendent of police Kailash Bishnoi said all SHOs had been ordered to take effective action against child labour. On Thursday morning, Kotda police station got a tip-off that some children from Hansreta and Wasela villages were being taken to Gujarat to work in a cotton field. Following this, Kotda SHO Dhanpat Singh and a member of district’s CWC left for Mamer in plainclothes and instructed staff of Mamer police outpost to set up barricading. Around 8.30am, the police saw a white pickup coming from Mamer village. It had 17 children and two passengers. “The children told us that Laxman Kagva, who was driving the pickup, was taking them to work in cotton fields for Rs 200 a day. Laxman said he got Rs 50 for every child. He takes them to fields in morning and brings them back to their village in evening,” SHO said.