New Delhi, July 20: Scores of children wash up at India’s railway platforms every day, lost, abandoned or fleeing from home. But they are treated with suspicion sometimes even slapped and beaten by railway police who are ignorant of laws related to juveniles.
Appalled by the lack of sensitivity of railway police personnel towards these children, the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) is planning to write to the railway ministry suggesting legal amendments.
On a visit to the busy New Delhi railway station, a team of officials of the child rights body a long with this reporters found that most of the railway police personnel were unaware of the Juvenile Justice (JJ) Act under whose ambit a child in need of care and protection is supposed to be brought.
“I am very scared of the policemen. They slap and hit us first and then ask questions, without any fault of ours. After all the taunts, they leave us and go away,” said eight-year-old Rahim, a runaway who was loitering near the station.
Some children said they were handled like criminals.
According to NCPCR member Sandhya Bajaj, the Railway Act and the JJ Act should be brought together for safeguarding child rights. The JJ Act gives clear guidelines that a child who is either in conflict with the law or in need of care should be given protection and handled with a child-friendly approach.
“At the moment the railway police are not bound by the JJ Act. Even if they get an abandoned child on the railway platform, they are not bound by the guidelines of the JJ Act. Therefore, if they are sensitised about the Act, things can improve a lot,” Bajaj said.
-IANS