Twenty child beggars scooped off the streets

9 parents who lived on their children's earnings are behind bars

Twenty children, forced to beg so that their parents could live the good life, were rescued by the Child Welfare Committee at K G Halli yesterday. Police have arrested nine parents.

Raids conducted by the CWC and K G Halli police on makeshift houses revealed that each child earned about Rs 200 every day. Parents with two or three children ended up with a tidy sum at the end of the day and lived a lavish life.u00a0 Some of them had expensive gadgets like TV and audio systems and blew up their money on alcohol, police said.

The CWC members started investigating after a tip-off from an NGO. They found that the majority of the offenders came from Bilaspur in Uttar Pradesh and were spread across the city. The male members kept a tab on the children and old people begging at junctions by selling toys and knick-knacks, CWC member N Basavraj said.

"We kept a close watch on these families and recorded their activities on camera. We submitted the report to the department of women and child welfare and got permission to conduct raids," Basavraj said.

Such children were brought to the CWC earlier but they were taken back by their parents on the assurance that they would be admitted to school. This time, the CWC will act tough and not allow the menace to thrive, he said.

The rescued children have been housed in a children's observation home and the committee has written to its counterparts in Bilaspur, Basavraj said.