GOA: Police in Goa, in western India, have unearthed what could be a racket where caretakers of a juvenile home, goaded minor inmates to steal, quite like the plot in Charles Dickens' famous novel Oliver Twist. The only difference being that instead of Fagin and his ‘institution' in the Dicken's novel, the institution involved here is the government-run reformatory home for juveniles – Apna Ghar – and one of its caretakers is Videsh Mandrekar. Five juveniles have been detained and Mandrekar has been arrested for theft, housebreaking, and criminal conspiracy. The youth have been sent back to the reformatory home pending an ossification test which will determine whether they are below 18 years of age and hence juveniles. According to the police, the caretaker used to allow the juveniles to ‘escape' from the reformatory home for their stealing runs carried out in co-ordination with gangs at large. The juveniles used to then sell the stolen stuff to the caretaker at a throwaway price, who used to in turn sell the booty in the open market. “Whenever the boys wanted to escape, they would seek help from the caretaker, who would hand over a cell phone to the minors, who would contact the gangsters outside and plan the date and time of their escape,” Superintendent of police Vijay Singh told Bikyamasr.com. Police have recovered two laptops, four mobile phones including an iPhone, four two-wheelers and cash of Rs 1,600. The children were originally detained, after police during a routine check, noticed one of the juveniles moving about in a suspicious manner on a stolen two-wheeler in Porvorim, a suburb of Goa's administrative capital Panaji. The suspect then led the police to other juveniles who confessed to the involvement of the caretaker.
