The Jharkhand Police have arrested the owner of a children’s home in Phullanwal village in Ludhiana district of Punjab under the Juvenile Justice Act for running it without registration and alleged human trafficking. The arrest was made late on Tuesday, The Indian Express reported.
Fifty-eight-year-old Satyendra Prakash Musa, the owner of Paksin Mary Cross Child Shelter Home, is also accused of illegal religious conversion. The police team, from Chaibasa in West Singbhum district, said he converted the children to Christianity.
In a raid conducted on August 20, eight children – four from Bihar and four from Jharkhand – were found at the shelter. “Thirty children are missing and Musa is claiming that he has handed them over to their parents, but he has failed to give us details of the same,” Sub-inspector Banarasi Ram told The Indian Express. All the missing children are from Jharkhand. Also, children were being taught Christian scriptures and given new names. They were converted without even telling their parents.”
Ram added, “We have arrested Musa after thorough inquiry.”
He said the police took action after they received a complaint from the Child Welfare Committee in Chaibasa. Ram said the police will take Musa to Chaibasa to find out who he had handed over the missing children to. The four children from Jharkhand will be taken back to their parents, he added.
The police are also on the lookout for another accused, Junal Longa, a resident of Seengda village in Chaibasa.
The children’s home has been running for the last 12 years.
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