GUWAHATI / NEW DELHI: Markazul Ma’arif refuted the report of National Commission for the Protection of Children’s Rights (NCPCR), which alleged that the NGO’s six childcare institutions in Assam and Manipur misused funds from various sources, including some from abroad, and has called for an investigation into the status of some 300 “missing” children.
However, the head of the nation’s leading children’s rights body supported the commission’s report and demanded to know whether the children from these six homes were placed there under the orders of the child welfare committees (CWC).
Assam MP Maulana Badruddin Ajmal has established these houses, one of which allegedly received funding from a International NGO linked to al-Qaida.
Secretary of Markazul Ma’arif Khalilur Rahman Laskar told TOI, “He figure of the 1,080 inmates from our five orphanages that the commission has identified in its report is the 2015 enrollment figure. Currently, we have 900 children with us and 180 of them have passed out or abandoned.
“On December 15, 16 and 17, a team from the commission suddenly visited us and produced this report. But we were not asked to give any explanation about the situation of our children, who are no longer in our institutes, “he added.
However, NCPCR chief Priyank Kanoongo said: “When the commission team went to inspect these houses, three of them did not have any registration certificates to show. None of the homes showed any records to the inspection team regarding the number of children placed there based on CWC orders. Under the Juvenile justice law, each child has to be placed in a children’s home only by order of the CWC ”.
NCPCR has requested that funding sources and use of funds be investigated. Kanoongo said: “I would like to ask Markazul Ma’arif if the CWC knew that any information about children to be covered by the project was being shared with a foreign funded organization. We are concerned about the safety of the children due to the deficiencies observed in the institutions during the inspections. It is these observations that have made us recommend FIRs under the JJ Law and an investigation on issues related to financing. ”
Laskar said: “We are registered as an NGO with the NCPCR and the state commission. We are also an NGO registered under the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act 1976 and every penny we receive from abroad is scrutinized by the government of India … “. To know about them … it is the government that should warn us before we take funds from such agencies. ”
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