28 Ladakhi kids rescued from NGO, will fly home Monday

JAMMU - Jammu police Sunday rescued 28 Ladakhi children from a room where they were confined to by an NGO here, and arrested five members of the organisation, an official said. The children will fly back to Leh Monday.

The children were brought to Jammu by the Youth Movement for Peace ostensibly for providing education.

Official sources said that the government will provide all the help to these children and they would be resettled in Leh, from where they were brought by the NGO.

The NGO had brought the children to Jammu to get them admitted to a prestigious schools.

One of the five arrested NGO members, Ranjana, told reporters that they did “nothing illegal” and laimed that they had become victims of a malicious propaganda.

Ladakh Buddhist Association (LBA) leader P.K. Gunzong told reporters: “The NGO is alleged to have been preparing the children’s conversion from Buddhism to Christianity.”

After receiving complaints, Jammu police started investigations and found that the NGO’s action amounted to abduction and illegal confinement of the children.

The police, on the complaints of the parents and the LBA, registered cases against five members of the NGO and arrested them on charges of kidnapping and keeping the children in illegal confinement.

The children have now been handed over to the LBA and the government has started the process of sending them to Leh.

“We will send them to Leh tomorrow (Monday) morning by air,” an official told IANS.

“Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has asked the district authorities of Leh to allocate special funds for the rehabilitation of the children and their education with the consent of their parents,” the official said.