Nearly 120 Teenagers From Tamil Nadu's Dindigul Go Missing, Police & CB-CID Form Team To Start Search Operation

Updated on: 2 May 2017 4:58 pm

In Tamil Nadu's Dindigul village, about 120 teenagers were reportedly been tricked into bondage four years ago.

The victims were taken to Maharashtra four years ago to work in sweets and savouries units there, reported The Times of India.

A team of police and CB-CID officers was formed after Arumugam , father of one of the victims Surya, filed a petition at the Madurai bench of the Madras High Court.

Surya was only 15 years old when he was sent to Maharashtra after an agent paid his father Rs 10,000.

Another victim Vijay Kumar, one of the boys accompanying Surya, returned last September with burn injuries. It pushed Arumugam and the other parents to file the petition after realising that their children were being tortured.

S Annadurai , head of non-profit organisation Child Voice who undertook a survey of 30 villages in the area two months ago. told the newspaper,"We found that 122 children had gone to work in sweet and savoury making shops in Maharashtra.

"About 80% of the parents didn't know the whereabouts of the children. All of them were school dropouts belonging to the Arunthathiyar community."

The report says that the current drought condition is one of the major reasons which has fuelled such rackets.

The drought condition has worsen in the recent months in the state. A total of 30 farmers have committed suicide across the state in 2016-17.

In April, an affidavit filed by the state government before a bench of Justices Dipak Misra and A M Khanwilkar said the kin of 82 farmers, including the 30 farmers who have committed suicide, have been give Rs 3 lakh each as ex-gratia from Chief Minister's Relief Fund.

The farmers from the southern state have been demanding a drought relief package of Rs 40,000 crore, farm loan waiver and setting up of Cauvery Management Board by the Centre.

Recently, some drought-hit farmers were protesting in the national capital adorning human skulls around their necks, eating rats, drinking their urine trying to grab the attention of the authorities towards their condition.