Tibet sisters jailed over Dickensian child gang
November 22, 2007
Tue Nov 20, 2007 12:15pm IST
BEIJING (Reuters) - China has sentenced two Tibetan sisters to
lengthy jail terms for running a crime gang that forced a dozen
children to beg or steal and kept them in line with brutality, the
Xinhua news agency said on Tuesday.
The women and 14 relatives from Xigaze in the Buddhist Himalayan
region forced more than 10 children to beg and steal for them over
many years, Xinhua said of a saga which makes Charles Dickens' Fagin,
who in "Oliver Twist" ran a gang of child pickpockets in 19th century
London, look tame by comparison.
The gang locked the children in guarded rooms at night and divided
them into several groups, each of which had to make between 100 yuan
($13.50) and 300 yuan from begging or theft a day, it added.
"The sisters and their husbands exercised brutal violence, such as
scorchings with hot cooking oil and beatings for those who tried to
escape, failed to meet the quotas or refused to steal," Xinhua said.
Baiqu, Wangmu and other gang members were arrested in the Tibetan
capital Lhasa in March and police confiscated half a million yuan of
illegal gains, Xinhua said.
Convicted of theft, mayhem and organising minors to beg the sisters
were jailed for 20 and 19 years respectively. Their co-defendants
were jailed for between two and 17 years.