Agra street children march for secure future

Urging Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath to provide them identity and a secure future, scores of street children of the Taj city took out a march here on the International Day of Street Children.

Holding placards and raising slogans, the children on Tuesday evening marched to the Agra District Magistrate's residence.

"Yogiji give us identity, education, protection and respect," shouted the group of street children.

"Most of the street children live in slums, footpaths, railway stations or bus stands, doing odd jobs or begging," Naresh Paras, regional coordinator of NGO Mahfooz, told IANS.

The number of street kids is high in Agra, as they usually find succour at various tourist locations, Paras said.

"The administration has no idea of their plight or their numbers."

The protesting children demanded Aadhaar cards, enrolment in schools and efforts to integrate them in the mainstream of society.

They also demanded firm steps to ban sale of drugs and intoxicating materials, including puncture adhesive and whiteners, widely used by these kids as intoxicants.

"Those children who have become habitual of using whiteners or pain-killers should be admitted to psychiatric centres," organisers of the march said.

--IANS

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