They overcame all odds to strike the right note

Life has not been very kind to them yet they have chosen to strike a defiant chord. Over 20 children from Bhatti Mines in South Delhi have come together to form a band, courtesy Delhi Police. Faizan Haidar reports.

Life has not been very kind to them yet they have chosen to strike a defiant chord.

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Over 20 children from Bhatti Mines in south Delhi have come together to form a band, courtesy Delhi Police.

It was a proud moment for parents, who worked all their lives in the mines, seeing their children perform on the stage. The labourers had migrated during the Partition and belong to the Oudh community, which has its origins in Sindh and Punjab in Pakistan. For the past 60 years, generations of these labourers have toiled at the mines.

But now under the Yuva initiative of the Delhi Police, their children can have a different life. The police had urged the children from the area to join a computer training class. It was then that they expressed their interest in music and the police officers obliged. "We have a police post in Bhatti Mines. We constructed a room near the post for the training of underprivileged kids in music. A music teacher was arranged for them with the help of an NGO. Now, under the name of 'Yuva Band' the children are performing across Delhi," said BS Jaiswal, DCP (south).

Under the Yuva scheme, over 300 children from Bhatti Mines are being trained in different courses. Apart from this, 84 underprivileged boys and girls of Motilal Nehru Camp, Bhawanrsingh Camp, Nepali Camp, Coolie Camp, Kusumpur Pahadi and RK Puram slums have also been trained in computer applications. Of these, 25 trainees have jobs as front office executives with reputed banks such as ICICI, SBI and some BPO firms.Yuva is a part of Delhi Police's community policing scheme.