Salaam Dilli: Gangs, smack at 8 years

He''s the leader of a gang that breaks locks in Sadar Bazar and Kashmere Gate. Does everything from liquor and ganja to smack. Dives into the Yamuna to collect coins offered by devotees. Watches his smack-addict father beat up his mother. Peeps through a keyhole at obese traders in the Mori Gate area indulging in sexual acts with children.
Welcome to the life of Noor Ali alias Rafique, all of eight years.He stays in a 10-by-six shanty in Yamuna Pushta, where his five brothers and three sisters live with his parents. His mother is the only earning member and his father is so far gone into smack that he cannot remember even the name of his village.
But Rafiq got a high during the train journey to his village near Begusarai in Bihar. That even beat the high he got from sniffing correction fluid.
Ask him how he breaks locks and he says: "I don''t, my friend Salauddin does." Shakeera, a community worker from Navjyoti which helps him, winks. "He is Salauddin."
At night he raids Sadar Bazar and Kashmere Gate. He twists a narrow wire into locks and opens them. The big guys get the loot. He gets Rs 400. At other times, he loots scrap. He got caught once and was taken to a remand home where other boys beat him up.
Rafique is short and puny, but clearly a leader. He''s also the best swimmer around — he dives from the Old Yamuna Bridge and brings up polythene bags containing coins.
Spotting talent, Navjyoti enrolled him for swimming lessons where he won the first prize. As for the silver medal that he won, he says: "It was fake. But I have kept it so I can show it to Kiran Devi (Bedi)," Perched on the fringes of society, he is waiting to be rescued.