Rescued girls ‘brainwashed’, claim to be happy with spiritual training

UDAIPUR

: Counselling of the minor girls and interrogation of their mentors who were found from a hotel on Rajnagar road in a police raid on Wednesday, suggests they were ‘brainwashed’ and had taken the spiritual way to escape the miseries of life. Police had found 67 girls and 12 women from the hotel, which reportedly was a spiritual camp where the minor girls were being taught meditation and deeper knowledge.

Child rights activists and members of nodal agency working for the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) met the rescued minors who despite all the coaxing, sternly maintained that they were not kept there by force and were very happy in their present condition. “They seem to be hypnotised. All of them have been repeating the same lines in a row- I am happy, I am taking spiritual training, my mother brought me here,” Rishikant, an activist from

Shakti

Vahini, an organization addressing child trafficking and rescue missions told TOI.

The counsellors spoke to the girls on a one-to-one basis to find whether any one of them would divulge any detail but all in vain. “Many of the girls are from Gosaba area which is interior part of

Sundarbans

in

West Bengal

, some belong from the Bengladesh bordering villages hit by extreme poverty,” Rishikant said. Most of their stories had been similar as narrated to the counsellors. They said that they were going to schools and their mothers were very poor.

Some were orphans and living with their relatives. The girls said some people regularly came to their homes and educated them that spiritualism is the only way to get rid of all the miseries of life. So their mothers sent them to live in the ashram and now they are learning meditation, spiritual practices etc. and were quite happy. “It is quite astonishing that all these girls were sent by their mothers, none of them said their fathers sent them here, this suggests such families were intentional targets as the single women were perhaps battling financial difficulties and unable to sustain a livelihood,” Rishikant said. On being asked whether the ashram had any connection to the Brahmakumaris organization at

Abu Road

, Rishikant said that the women who were with the children informed them that Brahmakumaris demanded them to give all their belongings and money before taking them in and so they departed and made their own setup with a similar name.

“A few people have approached us claiming to be the parents of some of the girls but they cannot be trusted and are suspected to be the owners of the ashram. The hotel owner too is at fault because he didn’t inform the police when he permitted so many minor girls to congregate and stay at his place. Though the ashram is registered, however, before shifting minor girls from one place to another, the permission of the Child Welfare Committee of the concerning areas has to be taken which was not done in this case,” Bhawna Paliwal, chairperson of the CWC said.

Presently, the CWC, Childline and Balika Grah are together counselling these girls, while there is a strict vigil by police outside. District judges, collector and police officials too have been visiting the shelter home and taking their updates. “When we raided the place and began the rescue operation, these children were not willing to come with us and were adamant that two of their teachers were to be taken along. So looking at the sensitivity of the situation, we have brought two teachers to the shelter home,” said Bhojraj Padampura of Asra Vikas Sansthan, the shelter home where the kids are being kept.


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