'Sale of children stage-managed'

By Prafulla Das

BADAGUMUDA (Orissa), SEPT. 24. The story on the ``sale'' of two children by a ``starving family'' in Badagumuda village of Orissa's Bolangir district is not an open and shut case. The tribal family in question has a deposit of Rs. 16,000 in a bank account, besides having three goats at home.

``The whole thing has been stage-managed to give the administration a bad name,'' says the District Collector, Mr. S.K. Sarangi, who conducted an inquiry into the matter on Sunday following a report in an English daily that one of their correspondents had purchased the two children for Rs. 1,100.

Mr. Sarangi said that money was not the criterion in this case. The children were taken from their uncle with an assurance that they would be provided with food and education in Raipur, he said, adding that if it had indeed been a sale, then the children's relatives must have played a foul game by disposing them of in the garb of ``distress sale''.

The two children in question belong to Premishila Bhoi, a widow who died due to alleged starvation on December 1 last. Premishila had left her three children - Hrudananda (17), Paree (4), and Jemati (2) - with her brother-in-law, Dambaru, who has his own family of four.

Following the discovery of the bank account, the district administration feels happy. It says that no person with a decent bank balance would sell his children without making an attempt to withdraw the money first. Then, he would have sold the goats. At the very end, if hunger and poverty were the real reasons, he would have sold the children. But in this case, this logical sequence of events was not followed.

Hrudananda, who is working in a tea shop in the neighbouring village, said that Paree and Jemati had not been sold to anyone. ``They have taken Paree and Jemati to give them education and they will return home when they grow up,'' he said. Hrudananda also said that he was collecting the interest for Rs. 16,000 every month from Bolangir Anchalik Gramya Bank (BAGB) at Bangamunda and giving it to his uncle. While a term deposit of Rs. 10,000 received as ex-gratia for Premishila's death was deposited in the bank on December 17 last, Rs. 6,000 received from a voluntary organisation was deposited in another account.

According to Mr. D.D. Sarangi, the branch manager of the bank, both the accounts were in the name of Hrudananda. As any 12-year- old can open and operate an account in the bank, there was no bar on Hrudananda withdrawing the money whenever he wished.

``It was not a case of sale of Paree and Jemati. They had taken the two to give them education,'' said Ms. Madanwati Chhura, an anganwadi worker and resident of Badagumuda.

Ms. Chhura, however, said that the ``buyers'' had given about Rs. 500 in the hands of Dambaru while taking away Jemati.

Meanwhile, Dambaru has left for Raipur to see Paree and Jemati. His wife, Gangawali, denied that they had sold Paree and Jemati. ``Anyone who is saying that it was a sale, it telling a lie,'' she said.

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