21 Oct 2017 | 05:50am IST
Some Apna Ghar inmates go away at night & return in the morning, says shocked Vishwajit
Government on verge of accepting all recommendations of Levinson Martins committee report; Report exposed glaring lapses and recommended criminal action against some staffers
PANJIM: The strongest indictment of the state-run Apna Ghar, with horror stories from inside its premises tumbling out, has come by the Minister for Women and Child Development Vishwajit Rane himself. Speaking to Herald, after it reported on some of the horrific experiences of its child inmates, Rane said, “The activities inside the shelter-cum-remand home require proper monitoring for which a good administrator is required. Some students/children run away at night and come back in the morning. We need a good administrator.”
Jolted into action, with the seriousness of the situation at Apna Ghar, the WCD minister said that the government has decided to re-examine the Levinson Martins report which had exposed the criminal nexus between the then Apna Ghar staff, some minor inmates and a gangster.
Rane has decided to examine the report and claimed that the report will ‘most probably’ be accepted for implementation.
“I will most probably accept all the recommendations in the report and work on those guidelines. The report has been kept pending for too long,” the minister told Herald, following the report on this daily on Friday about the alleged illegal activities in the State-run institution.
Apna Ghar was embroiled in a controversy of juvenile smuggling in 2012 that was pointed out in the inquiry as well as in the police investigation. Martins’ report had indicted six caretakers for conniving with alleged gangster Zenito Cardozo to smuggle children out of the ghar. The report had not only exposed glaring lapses but also recommended criminal action against government employees for their alleged links with the criminals.
As per the inquiry report, the children, who were exposed to crime, were thereafter taken into custody by the police for robberies, stealing vehicles, spare parts and one of them was also charged with abetting a murder. The report had indicted caretakers – Manuel Mascarenhas, Videsh Mandrekar, Jayprakash Kambli, Sachin Pokle and Ghanshyam Gaude – for allegedly helping the juvenile inmates escape from the premises.
While Mandrekar was suspended and later reinstated, the remaining five were transferred to the head office without any disciplinary action being taken. Cardozo and Mandrekar had also faced arrest by the Porvorim police but were bailed out.
The appalling story of children being smuggled to gangster(s) had also put the department in the spotlight for allegedly failing to stop illegalities at Apna Ghar. The nexus between criminals and staffers also exposed the modus operandi of the criminal minds to remain in contact with the outside world – it was android mobile phones with internet connection.
