PANAJI
Over the past five years, the State-run Apna Ghar housed 191 juvenile delinquents of whom, the highest 78 minors including three girls were from Goa.
The observation-cum-shelter home has lodged underage children from 16 other states and two countries including Bangladesh and Nepal.
The data tabled on the floor of the House also indicates that nearly an equal number of children from Goa were legally released from Apna Ghar during this period.
“There are 191 minor offenders who were sent to Apna Ghar in the last five years...186 minors left Apna Ghar legally,” reads the reply by Minister for Women and Child Development Vishwajit Rane on Thursday.
His response to an unstarred question by MLA Aleixo Reginaldo Lourenco also revealed that 43 minor offenders hailing from Karnataka and 16 from Maharashtra were lodged in the institution during this period.
Similarly, nine children were from Jharkhand, eight from Uttar Pradesh, five each from Gujarat and West Bengal, while the remaining were from Odisha, Haryana, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Delhi, besides the two neighbouring countries.
Interestingly, the government-run home that witnessed a series of escapes in the past has recorded only eight escapes in the last five years, as per the government data.
Of these, five were from Maharashtra, two from Karnataka and one from Goa. No girl inmates from other states were lodged in Apna Ghar during this period and neither did they escape.
