Karnataka police pull 800 children out of work in a two-hour Saturday drive

Karnataka police and labour officials inspected 16,951 premises between 10:00 and 12:00 on Saturday and said they rescued 800 children from work. Bengaluru accounted for 503 of them, 63 percent of the state total. City police, in a separate Sunday statement, put their own figures at 529 children and 105 cases after checks at 6,076 locations. The two counts describe the same drive and do not match. Both are now on the record.

The state operation ran across all 962 police station limits. After Bengaluru, the next numbers were Vijayapura 72, Tumakuru 33, Koppal 27, Kalaburagi 22, Ballari 15 and Mysuru 13. Teams went into garages, marts, repair shops, hotels, markets, bars and restaurants. In the city, the West division recorded 103 rescues, East 74, North 66, Central 63 and South 52. The Central Crime Branch registered 26 of the city cases, East 18, North-East 17 and West 15. Statewide, 18 cases were listed under the Child and Adolescent Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986 and the Juvenile Justice Act, 2015. The city statement used a higher case count because it counted every FIR written inside Bengaluru limits.

The children came from Karnataka, Bihar, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Assam, Jharkhand and Nepal. That list is the part of the story that will last after the raid photographs fade. A two-hour sweep in one state pulled in children who had already crossed several internal borders, and some who had crossed an international one.

The trigger was a visit by Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar to the APMC yard in Yeshwantpur about a week earlier. Officials found children working there. One account said 19. Another, from the Indian Express, said 29 were later taken out of that market. Shivakumar told the police to run a wider check. Saturday was that check.

Two hundred and three of the Bengaluru children were housed at the women and children's counselling centre near Dairy Circle. Parents gathered outside and asked for them back. Police said the children had to be produced before the Child Welfare Committee first. That is the statutory sequence. It is also the point at which a raid becomes a custody argument. Families that sent a child to a shop for wages do not always see the state as a rescuer. The committee has to decide, case by case, whether the child goes home, into a shelter, or back to another district.

A senior officer said the raids have not ended. FIRs are on file. Notices have gone out. Labour inspectors and child welfare members were on the teams. None of that answers the question the numbers raise. If 800 children can be found in two hours, the population still at work is larger than any Saturday can clear. The useful follow-up is not another round-up. It is whether the 105 city cases produce convictions, and whether the children from Bihar, Rajasthan and Nepal are still in school six months from now.