From rxpgnews.com
No takers for children of jailed parents
By IANS,
Jan 14, 2007 - 8:40:41 AM
Ranchi, Jan 14 - Vineeta - is a seven-year-old girl who wants to study, play and make friends. She cannot do so as she has no option but to spend her childhood in jail.
There are 15 other children, aged 1-15 years, who are spending their childhood inside Birsa Munda Central Jail here.
The reason: their parents are also lodged in the same jail as they have been convicted in different criminal cases. Some face life imprisonment while others are serving seven years' terms.
Sunita - is another child, whose parents are serving life imprisonment for killing her grandfather and grandmother.
She was born in the jail and is being brought up there. There is no one to take care of her outside the prison.
And there are children who cannot meet their father despite being in the same prison.
According to the jail manual, male and female prisoners are kept separately and are not allowed to meet. The children are given the food prepared for the prisoners.
'According to jail manual, the children can stay with their mothers for six years. After that their relatives can take them to home,' said Abraham Minz, the superintendent of the jail.
'But not a single relative has turned up to take them back,' he said.
There is also a provision that if a mother wishes, her children can be adopted.
But according to jail officials, no one wants to adopt children whose parents are serving sentence in criminal cases.
'We are bound by the rules. We feel sorry when we watch these children growing up inside the jail though that they have not committed any crime. They cannot study because we cannot send them to any school. We cannot provide nutritious food to them as well,' said another official.
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