This story is part of our series on Police Impunity in India.
The day begins like any other at the children’s camp in G Kallupatti of Tamil Nadu’s Theni, nestled in the foothills of the Western Ghats. Children spill out of dormitories even before sunrise, filling the campus with contagious laughter, as they get ready for yoga. While some carry bamboo sticks for Silambam, Tamil Nadu’s ancient martial art, others clutch handmade puppets, eager to return to the stories they began weaving the previous afternoon. On the surface, the Reaching the Unreached campus, as it is called, resembles any other summer camp for kids: games, crafts, songs, friendships. But if we look a little closer, we can see that these children carry a kind of grief we cannot fathom.
