Aditi R and Siddharth Prabhakar By

CHENNAI: The Government Railway Police (GRP) intercepted 40 Muslim boys while being taken from Katihar, Bihar to a madrassa in Bangalore at Tondiarpet railway station on Saturday morning. The two adults accompanying them did not have valid documents.

“The railway police informed us of a large group of children being accompanied by two men. So when the train stopped at Tondiarpet we questioned them,” says Jay Mary, a Childline official.

The two men, Mohammad Haiyar Alam (24) and Sadique Raiza (27) from Katihar district, Bihar, had brought the children from Bihar for a one year training in Urdu at the Bangalore madrassa.

All the children had proper ID cards and tickets, but they did not have their parents’ permission letters, which during the initial questioning the men claimed they had obtained.

As there were no travel documents and the children seemed dazed, there were fears that they were child labourers transiting through Tamil Nadu, officials said.

There was a similar case of kids being taken from impoverished regions in North India to Bangalore last year, the source added, explaining other reasons for suspicion.

“We began calling their parents one by one, while some responded some denied knowing any such child,” the official said.

He added that while there were 40 children in total, the tickets only showed 20. “This can be so as most were 9 and 10 year old,” he said.

The group was supposed to get down at Perambur railway station on Thursday and rest in a local hotel room, but got off by mistake at Tondiarpet, official sources said.

“It’s puzzling because if they were going to Bangalore, then why would they halt at Perambur and then take another train. There are direct trains available too,” another official said.

To verify and ensure that the children reached the right place safely, two officers from Child Welfare Committee (CWC), two GRP and RPF officers accompanied them to Bangalore. They boarded the Lalbagh Express in the evening. The railway officials in Bangalore too have been alerted about their arrival.