Every year, Mohammed Sajjad’s two sons travel nearly 1,800 km from their home in Bihar’s Araria district to Karnataka’s Bidar to attend classes for eight months at a madrasa.
“They get free education, free meals and free books there,” Sajjad said. “We don’t have a very good education system in Bihar so I started sending them to the Bidar madrasa three years ago.”
On the morning of April 11, Sajjad’s two sons – 13-year-old Shahnawaz and 11-year-old Shahbaz – boarded the Patna Purna Express from Patna station along with 13 other boys from their village, Kundilpur. They were accompanied by their 21-year-old teacher, Mohammad Zahir, who is from the same village, Sajjad said. They were supposed to reach Maharashtra the next day and travel onwards in a bus to Bidar.
But that night, around 8, a team of Government Railway Police and Railway Protection Force forced the children to alight from the train at Katni railway station in Madhya Pradesh, alleging that they were being trafficked. Their teacher, Zahir, was booked under Section 143 (4) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, which relates to child trafficking.
The children with Zahir were not the only group to face scrutiny. The team of railway police said they “rescued” 163 children, all between the ages of seven and 18, from different coaches of the same train. Eight men accompanying them were booked.
While the majority of the children were from Bihar’s Araria and Supaul districts, 10 children were from Uttar Pradesh’s Banda district. The parents of several children in Kundilpur categorically told Scroll that their children were not being trafficked.
Sajjad said he knew Zahir, who had studied at the Bidar madrassa and become a hafiz – someone who has memorised the Quran. “We all sent our children with him because we knew him,” he said.
Most parents in Kundilpur village are too poor to afford travel fare to Madhya Pradesh to bring their children back. The village pradhan has written a letter to the Government Railway Police to confirm that the children were not trafficked and had permission to study at madrassa.
The parents have also recorded a video, stating that the 15 children from the village were going to study at a madrasa and asked that they be released. They sent the video to the Madhya Pradesh police over WhatsApp.
“Police proof mangta hai, gareeb aadmi kaise jayega wahan tak,” a woman says in the video. ‘The police are asking for proof. How will a poor person travel so far to give proof?’
“This is harassment,” Mohammad Salauddin, Zahir’s brother, told Scroll. “Just because a Muslim man is accompanying some Muslim children, he is being targeted.”
Vijay Gothariya, deputy superintendent of police, Government Railway Police, did not respond to calls or messages from Scroll asking for more details about the incident.
This is not the first time that children travelling from Araria to a madrasa have been stopped in this manner. In 2023, 59 children from the district accompanied by five men were stopped by the railway police and admitted to shelter homes in Jalgaon and Nashik. The five men, who taught at madrasas in Maharashtra, were arrested on charges of trafficking even though their parents confirmed that the children were being sent to the madrassa.
A year later, the government railway police closed the case against the men, saying that there was no evidence against them.
The complaint
According to the first information report, which Scroll has seen, the police action was prompted by information from a member of Katni’s child welfare committee, Durgesh Sharma.
When Scroll contacted Sharma, he confirmed that he had flagged a possible trafficking incident to the police and the train was intercepted. But he refused to comment further. Sharma was present at the station when the children were deboarded.
Yogesh Singh Baghel, the chairperson of Katni child welfare committee, said he was out of Katni and did not know the details of the case.
The FIR states that 163 children were found accompanied by eight adults with no documentation and “with intention to push the children into child labour”.
Sajjad, however, denied the police claim. “I had given my sons my Aadhaar card and their Aadhaar cards,” he said. “My contact number was with them. The police could have called me to verify. But I did not receive any call in the last two days. Now I don’t know how to bring my children from Katni.”
Sajjad added that he was unaware where the police had taken his sons.
According to the FIR, the police found a 34-year-old man travelling with over 100 children from Bagadehra village in Araria district, while a 27-year-old man was found travelling separately with a group of 10 children from Supaul.
Three children from Nasaini village in Uttar Pradesh’s Banda district were travelling with another 21-year-old man. Another 20 children from Taran village in Araria were traveling with a 23-year-old man. Ten children, in separate groups, were travelling from Mahalgaon in Araria with two more men, aged 19 and 30 respectively.
The first information report does not say that the children were part of a coordinated trafficking effort.
Scroll was able to verify that 30 children from Kundilpur in Araria and a village in Supaul were headed for the Darul Imamdiya madrasa in Bidar. Its maulana Mohd Zakir told Scroll that the madrasa has a boarding capacity of 35 children and was expecting the children to arrive from Bihar.
“We have written to the Madhya Pradesh police and we have submitted pictures of our madrasa as proof,” he said.
Another 100 children from Bagadehra, also in Araria district, were headed for Jamia Ashrafia Anjuman-e-Islamia in Maharashtra’s Udgir, parents of three children told Scroll. They were accompanied by their teacher Saddam Hussain, who has been named in the FIR.
A letter from the Anjuman-e-Islamia madrasa, which Scroll has seen, confirms the same. It states that 100 students from Bihar were travelling on April 11 in a train to Nanded railway station to the madrasa, where they are taught English, Marathi, mathematics along with religious texts.
Azizur Rahman, who heads the madrasa, said Hussain had this letter on him in the train. “The children were supposed to get off at Nanded station and take a bus to Udgir,” Rahman said, adding that Hussain worked as a teacher since 2016 at the madrasa and helped several students travel from Bihar.
For now, the children have been housed at government-run child protection homes in Jabalpur and Katni. “The matter is under investigation. Till we are able to ascertain that it is not a case of child labour, we will keep them at shelter home,” said Manish Vyas, chairperson of Jabalpur’s Child Welfare Committee.
Mohammad Mehdi, spokesperson of Association for Protection of Civil Rights in Jabalpur, said the eight men detained have cooperated with the police and provided all documents. “We are legally representing them. There were different groups of children from different villages. They were headed to different madrasas,” he said.
Zahir, who has been named an accused, was detained on Saturday night and released on Sunday. He told Scroll that they tried to explain that the children were going to a madrasa with permission from parents. “We even called the madrasa and the management spoke to the police,” Zahir said. “We were ready to call the parents. But we were detained even after all this.”
AK Khan, a local activist in Katni, said he is helping the children contact their parents. “We spoke with some parents,” he told Scroll. “It is clearly not a case of child trafficking.”
Long journey for parents
For many parents, the free education in these madrasas is the only hope for a better future for their children.
Mohd Ashique sells vegetables in Bagadehra and never finished primary school.
He has four children who have been studying at Jamia Ashrafia Anjuman-e-Islamia madrassa in Udgir for the last two years. “My children were not regular in school in Bihar,” he said. “They did not enjoy going to class. We thought of sending them to Maharashtra for a better education.”
The boarding, meals and education are free. Ashique only has to pay their train fare.
Once he sent his children to Udgir, more parents from the village were interested. “The teacher Saddam Hussain is from our village,” Ashique said. “Last year, he took 50 to 60 children with him. This year, several parents wanted to send their children and the number rose to 100.”
Among the 100 children are Nursaba Jumni’s two sons Rashid and Asif.
She told Scroll that the school’s form and identification proof were with Saddam Hussain. “We don’t understand why the police detained him and our children when he had the paperwork,” she said.
Both Jumni and Ashique came to know that their children were detained in Katni from television news.
“The police called us later and asked us to bring identification proof, ration card, Aadhaar card and documents related to the school. I have all this in my bag,” she told Scroll on Monday evening from a train, a day after she – and 40 other parents – left for Katni.
The journey to Katni has cost each parent Rs 1,000-Rs 1,500. “We first took a bus to Patna,” said Jalal Khan, whose 12-year-old son Guddu was also detained. “From there we took the train. We are labourers. We don’t have money to travel. But there was no option. The police asked us to submit proof and take our children.”
Khan reached Katni late on Monday night. He and other parents from his village slept outside the police station. He said they were summoned on Tuesday afternoon with all documents.
Ashique, the vegetable seller, was among them. He said the police had no reason to interrupt the children’s journey. “The teacher had the necessary documents,” he said. “Ye prashasan pareshan kar rahi hai bas.” This government is just harassing us.
