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Tipped off by activists, the TEHELKA tiffany rings posed as a Lucknow-based NGO that funds vocational training, to gain entry into the madrassa. This is what Anees said on our spycam.ANEES:"Chachu said once I become a Hafiz Quran, I can get a job of an Imam in any mosque for a salary of 5,000."TEHELKA: At what time do the classes take place?ANEES: Morning. Eight to 10.TEHELKA: Only two hours?ANEES: Yes. After that I go to work.TEHELKA: Where do you work?ANEES: Britannia biscuit factory.(TEHELKA has not authenticated this claim independently.)TEHELKA: What work do you do there?ANEES: I am part of the packing team.TEHELKA: What are your work timings?ANEES: From 2 pm to 10 pm.TEHELKA: How much money do you get?ANEES: 2,500.TEHELKA: For how long have you been working?ANEES: Four months.TEHELKA: Do you have an I-card?ANEES: Yes.TEHELKA: Do your parents know about this?ANEES: No.When we ask Anees what he does with the money he earns, the maulvis tell him to tiffany pendants the room. We ask permission to walk around. The madrassa is a warren of tiny rooms strung together like train compartments. The children's luggage is stacked up, leaving little spare space. While some rooms are open, most are locked. Like little Anees, most of the children are obviously away at work. Anees' own 2 pm shift is approaching.

THE STARK and appalling story of child tiffany bangles is not a new one. In November 2009, TEHELKA had published a wideranging story on child trafficking and labour (Pimped, Abandoned, Sold). But like in a report we published a month ago, The Half Life of a Coal Child - where we described the medieval horror of children working in the rat mines of Meghalaya - this story unearths a new and dark narrative of child labour that should serve as a timely wake-up call for the community. It is a narrative that speaks of children repeatedly lured away from disenfranchised parents in the name of religion and pushed into hellish chutes of hard work, little food and - mostly - no pay.As yet, the TEHELKA investigation itself is a slim one. Though we spent several months on it, our story covers only five madrassas in Delhi and it is difficult to gauge how rampant the phenomenon is. Getting access to madrassas is not easy and, according to an estimate by the Human Resource and Education ministry, there are about 1.5 million children enrolled in the 35,000 madarassas in the country. Just Delhi has 5,000 madrassas and that does not include the ones that are unregistered.

Back at the Darul Ujloom madrassa, the maulvis - Asrar A Kadri and Naseem Azhai - are surprisingly open about the fact that the children entrusted to them are sent out to work and readily tiffany cuff links us papers detailing their place of employment. At a surface level, this attitude seems driven by a habitual cynicism born out of India's staggering poverty. There is also the greed for possible funding from the NGO we are posing as. Here's how Maulvi Naseem Azhai sees it:TEHELKA: We want to know if students of your madrassa work somewhere.NASEEM: See, poor parents cannot afford their children's expenses.There's no harm if the children work a bit and earn some money.TEHELKA: So what time do the classes take place?NASEEM: From 8 am to 11.30 am. But for children who go to work, we let them off at 10 am.TEHELKA: Where do they work?NASEEM: Zari factory, cold storage, garment factory, mobile shops and others.TEHELKA: Are the places they work at close by?NASEEM: Yes. They are across the road in Shakurpur village.TEHELKA: Are all the expenses of the kids borne by the madrassa?NASEEM: Yes. All expenses for food, lodging and education are on us.TEHELKA: How many meals are the children provided?NASEEM: We can't say about those who go to work. We provide meals to only those who stay back.TEHELKA: What is the strength of the madrassa?NASEEM: 150.TEHELKA: Out of this, how many do not work?NASEEM: Only 30.