Hyderabad, April 22: The BJP State unit on Sunday sought a White Paper from the State on the status of Banjara tribes. It also demanded that the government constitute a high-level committee to probe the child adoption issue.

Addressing a press conference here BJP spokesman G Kishen Reddy and BJP secretary T Vijayalakshmi blamed the State government for the death of three infants at the orphanage in Tandur. Though a fact-finding committee headed by National Commission for Women Shanta Reddy had submitted a report on the irregularities at the John Abraham Bethany Home ten days ago and a series of reports being published in the media, the government had failed to take effective measures to rescue the children, they said.

“A month passed by since Savithramma, the woman managing the Home vanished deserting the kids, yet the government did not bother to shift the children. Due to delay, several kids became sick and three girls died. This could have been avoided,” they said.

The BJP leaders said the adoption centres had the tacit encouragement of foreign missionaries. They said the proposed probe should bring out facts regarding who were adopting these kids and arranging passports and visas for them. They wanted the State to take the help of the Home Ministry to address the problem adding that they would write to the Ministry in this regard.

Poverty and superstition were some of the factors behind the sale of infant girls, they said. “The gender bias of the Lambada thandas towards the girl child has been exploited by the brokers of these orphanages. These brokers prepare a list of pregnant mothers and offer them pre and post natal help and trap them into selling the girl child,” Kishen Reddy and Vijayalakshmi said.

Stating that the existing laws including the GO passed recently would not be of any use to stop this, the BJP leaders wanted amendments to the concerned Acts. They wanted seizure of all the orphanages in the State forthwith.

Giving details on the adoptions, Kishen Reddy said in Bodakuda thanda in Manchala mandal in R R District about 28 girls were sold for adoption. Similarly, in Yacharam mandal about 15 were given away for adoption. Girls were sold in thandas in Medak, Gajwel and Tandur. In Karnataka’s Chincholi, Jaalwada and Kucharam thandas also the situation was no different, he said.