A day after TV channels showed two boys pulling the plough oxen-like on the family farm of Union Rural Development Minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh, one of them has claimed that they were paid Rs 20 each to pose for the camera. His mother too repeated the claim, saying her son had handed her the money and told her about the incident.

Incidentally, Chandan Kumar (11) and Sonelal Kumar (10), described on TV as child labour hands at the minister’s family farm which led to an uproar, were spotted taking an examination today at the Shahpur middle school. Though Chandan is the elder of the two, he is in Class III while Sonelal is in Class IV.

Asked whether they were regulars at the school, both replied in the affirmative. To make the point that they could write, both wrote their names — Sonelal in English and Chandan in Hindi, their handwriting very neat.

Their parents said it was curiosity and greed that made the boys pose like oxen for the camera. “We are poor but we don’t use our little children or make them earn for the family,” said Sonelal’s mother Sheela Devi, a farm hand.

Sonelal told The Indian Express that “Chandan and I were watching a drama in the village when two persons with cameras came to us. They said they will take our pictures in the field and gave us Rs 20 each to pull a papaya tree trunk tied to ropes.”

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