The same night a police team raided two houses in Thiruverambur serving as hideouts for training kidnapped children in burglary and thievery. Four children, including one aged four months, from Nagaland, were freed. They are now in government homes.

“Not always are the police so responsive,” pointed out Vimal Raj, project coordinator of Cuddalore’s Child Line. In January 2006, nine-year-old Ezhilarasi was found with a raw burn wound on her left hand, which she said was caused when her employers poured hot water on her hand. Howling with pain at the Parangipettai bus stand, 30 kms from Cuddalore town the little girl was picked up by members of the public and handed over to the ICCW staff. She had run away from home a year ago, fearing scolding from her mother for beating up her younger brother. According to Vimal Raj, the girl was picked up while wandering around Chidambaram town by a man who sold her for Rs. 2,000 as a domestic worker to Basheer Ahmed, a businessman.

But Ezhilarasi’s woes didn’t end there. She wanted to go back home. “But, the Parangipettai station inspector refused to help. He disbelieved the girl’s story and asked us how her father’s name was Nataraj (a bullock cart puller living in Chidambaram town) when she herself was a Muslim girl,” said Vimal Raj. The ICCW approached the then Cuddalore District SP, Panneerselvam, and managed to reach the girl to her parents. “Now, she is back home and going to school again.”

... contd.