No child’s play, 7-year-old sits on TASMAC stir

Child rights activists, however, cried foul and slammed his parents for exploiting the child to fulfil their agenda. On Wednesday morning, Aakaash A, a Class 2 student of a private school in Siruseri, dressed in his school uniform with bag intact walked about a kilometre from his house to the TASMAC shop on OMR in order sit at the entrance of the liquor shop and read his books. He claimed that he wanted to do so to wake up the authorities who refused to close the shop despite protests. 

Policemen reportedly rushed to the spot and stopped the boy about 50 metres from the liquor shop. Left with no choice, the child sat there and read his books on the road. He withdrew the protest only after the authorities closed the liquor shop, though temporarily. “If they don’t take steps to permanently close the shop, I’ll resume my protest,” Aaakash told this newspaper. He added that he decided to take up the issue as he had read about the problems faced by poor families to alcohol consumption in newspapers. 

Child rights activists, however, blamed parents for forcing children into such activities. “Child participation in protests is tokenistic, decorative and exploitative. It is sad that we use our children to push our agenda,” said Vidya Reddy of Tulir - Centre for the Prevention and Healing of Child Sexual Abuse.