When one watches Slumdog Millionaire,
one wonders whether in reality a racket as brutal as child trafficking really
exist. The smuggling of young kids, training them to sing bhajans, and then
using them to beg on roads makes us question the authenticity of the whole
process. May be this is’nt real. But things more gruesome than this are…
When I first
stepped in the Cuffe Parade slum, I instantly felt nauseated. Was I sick? No!
It was the atrocious stink which filled my nostrils and reached the pit of my stomach
that made me want to puke. Even when I was busy trying to control my nausea, I
could not help but get surprised by the fact that the people around me- the
‘slum-dwellers’, were absolutely fine with the obnoxious stink that made me
sick. Recovering from that initial attack, I moved further into the depths of
the slum. A mix of dilapidated shanties and ‘pacca’ houses flanked either side of the ‘kachha’ road. People, specially men kept staring at me with
eyeballs ready to pop out any instant. I felt an urgent need to go and grab a
stole or ‘chunni’ for myself. Why did
I come here? I kept asking myself. If it was not for this assignment I had to do,
I would never have come here.
The slum I
was roaming in can be fairly categorised as a well-to-do slum. People do not
live in extreme poverty here, although you could fairly guess that they do
struggle to make their both ends meet. For basic bread and butter one has to
work for the whole day and only then can he expect a decent meal. My initial
shyness evaporated in about twenty minutes, and then I started my interaction.
I was chit-chatting with young boys playing football when my eyes fell on a
policeman who was keeping his eyes steadily on the boys. I decided to talk to him.
Mohan Bhisai, the officer who has been appointed to look after kids in that
lane spoke in a guarded tone, as if not sure how much to reveal. “My senior
instructed me to stay here”, he said. “I look after the kids who play here
since there have been several kidnappings in the past”, he further added after
a little urging from my side. Zapped, I stared back at the kids. Were they even
aware of the potential threat they faced in their own locality? The home, the
shelter, the protective cocoon, which made them feel so secure, was in fact one
of the most dangerous place to live in.
I kept
asking other people, since Mr. Bhisai was in no mood to divulge further
details. What I gathered was shocking. Young kids, less than six to seven years
old were kidnapped and found dead a few days later near the slum. There were
two things common in all the missing kids- their dead bodies were invariably
discovered on a ground near Lalit building in Cuffe Parade and even more
gruesome was the fact that the kidneys of all the corpses were found missing.
What was shown in the movie Slumdog Millionaire was nothing in front of this horrifying
kidney racket.
Bharat
Chauhan, a young banjara, spoke about
how his neighbour’s three-year-old daughter was kidnapped and later found dead
on the same ground. “Her kidney was missing”, he confirmed. And what he added
on was even more horrendous- the girl’s head was chopped off. Such brutalities
immediately alerted the Cuffe Parade police and they installed CCTV cameras
along with stationing policemen in every lane of the slum. When asked, people
talk about such kidnappings with caution, since they have been instructed not
to discuss much about it by the police.
I went to
the police station to enquire further, since the locals were not giving in much.
Jagannath Gaikwad of Cuffe Parade Police station mentioned that the first
kidnapping took place on October 20, 2011 when a girl went missing from
Sayonara Junction. Days later her dead body was recovered. The second
kidnapping happened on January 12 2012. This time a three year old girl was the
target, she was kidnapped while she was walking with her grandmother. The third
incident took place on April 18, 2012, and yet again a girl was kidnapped. All
the girls were found dead after a few days. The police preferred to keep mum
when asked if there were any signs of sexual assault. And they maintaned their
silence when asked about kidneys being stolen from the bodies. Their silence forced my thoughts to linger on one possibility- a huge racket was at play here. Its web was far-fetched and full of conceits. No one knew what to say or whom to blame. The
police has not yet unearthed evidence against a single party. Too many
questions and too many doubts, so far nothing has been answered.
However, the
police did start taking measures with the second kidnapping and stringent
action scared off perpetrators. But fear flies high, and slum-dwellers still
worry about their little ones playing outside blissfully. The ignorant children
are not even aware that they’ll be picked by strangers from just outside their
houses. The people living there stated that kids were lured by chocolates and
they followed the person wherever he took them. Even after repeated attempts at
cautioning kids, this process of trapping kids continues.
Can the
children of Cuffe Parade be saved from a racket that is freshly brewing? For
that we need to rely on the police and make the slum dwellers more cautious.
Only then can one hope to save what looks like another Slumdog Millionaire in
making.
