In Pakistan, beggars earn lakhs

Beggars in Pakistan earn more than management graduates, if an investigation by a leading Pakistani daily is to be believed.

According to the Daily Times,
beggars in posh localities earn up to Rs 4,000 per day or a whopping Rs
1,20,000/- per month, while those in not so posh localities earn up to
Rs 2,500 per day.

Most often beggars portray themselves as
maimed for earning public sympathy, even though they may be hale and
hearty. The same beggar without an arm could be seen few days later
without a leg too, which almost always was concealed to give the look
that the beggar had lost a leg as well, the paper said.

Investigations revealed that many had taken to this profession because of unemployment and inflation.

A 19-year-old boy at Charing Cross in
Lahore said he pretended to be crippled, because people did not give
alms to healthy beggars.

“Almost everybody had a soft corner for
cripple people. I know what I am doing is wrong, but you forget
everything if you are about to faint from hunger. My parents were poor
and they couldn’t educate me, and I cannot get a job,” he said.

Another 35-year-old beggar said: “I worked
at a kiln for 12 hours a day in Kasur and earned Rs 2,000 a month in
this hot season. I decided to come to Lahore for a better job, but I
found a job for two days a week. I had to eat from Data Gunj Buksh’s
shrine. I met some people like me who told me that I should give
begging a try. I pretended to be paralysed and started begging, and to
my surprise I found that I could earn a lot”.

Police officials are however, of the
opinion that the beggars one comes across at traffic signals and street
crossings are the small fries of a much bigger begging syndicate.

In many cases the syndicate crippled the
beggars by beating them mercilessly and pushed them into begging. In
other cases, beggars had to pay a hefty sum to the men who ran the
syndicate.

More often than not, these groups lured poor people from rural areas into begging by offering them shelter, said the official.


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August 5, 2006 | Filed Under General World | 3 Comments 

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