India shelter reportedly tortured kids over Bible lessons
A boy rescued from an apparently unlicensed shelter in India has told the Hindustan Times newspaper that he and other children were starved and beaten by the staff if they failed to recite passages from the Bible accurately.
"They gave us good clothes whenever visitors came," the boy, whom the newspaper did not identify, reportedly told the paper.
He was one of about 30 children rescued by police from two homes at the end of December.
"They made us stand in line and recite Bible passages. Faltering meant a beating with sticks and belts later," he said of the people who worked at the homes, which were allegedly run by the Charity Seva Group.
The charity group's website states that it is a "a non-governmental, non-profitable organization working among the Orphans, street and underprivileged children and children deprived of education and health need irrespective of cast, creed or religion."
The Chief Development Officer of Meerut, where one of the homes is located, told the Reuters news agency soon after the raids that the charity's shelters were being run illegally.
"The issue is that the NGO is not yet registered, and it is mandatory to have the registration as they kept children," Navneet Singh Chahal said.
On Thursday, a senior police officer in charge of the investigation told the Hindustan Times that a criminal case had been registered.
"The children complained they were tortured and beaten up for not following the orders of the caretakers. We are investigating whether the organisation had permission to run a shelter home. Three persons, including the caretaker of the shelter home, have been detained and are being questioned. We are investigating the claims of the rescued children," the Times quoted Ashwani Kumar as saying.
The boy, 9, whose 11-year-old sister also told the newspaper of being forced to sleep on hard floors covered in rodent droppings, said the staff at the home forced all the children to convert to Christianity and to change their names.
"They never allowed us to step outside. We were not given food for three days at a stretch if we forgot a Bible passage," the 11-year-old girl told the newspaper.