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The Madhya Pradesh police are investigating allegations of child abuse at a private institution for minor girls after an inspection team from the state Women and Child Welfare department conducted a surprise inspection and alleged that children were “subjected to torture like burning with hot tongs and inhaling red chilli smoke”.
Child welfare committee chairperson Pallavi Porwal told The Indian Express“We formulated a team on orders of the district collector and got inputs that this orphanage was abusing children.”
Asked about the inputs they had received, Porwal said, “Some people who celebrated their birthdays at this orphanage with the children later made allegations of abuse on social media. We followed that up.”
Porwal alleged that two children were burnt with hot tongs as marks were found on them. “They were branded with hot tongs, made to inhale red chilli smoke. One child told us that she was starved as punishment for a day. They have been shifted to another facility.”
Based on the complaint of the inspection team, an FIR has been registered at the local police station in Indore, though no arrest has been made so far.
CWC member Sangeeta Chaudhary said there were 25 girls registered at the orphanage and 21 were present on the day of the raid.
“Of the 21, only three belong to Madhya Pradesh while the others are from Gujarat, Odisha, Maharashtra and Rajasthan. There was no security at the gates, no visitors’ register. The facility officials claimed they are an orphanage. But later, the parents of the children turned up,” she alleged.
The facility is run by the Vatsalyapuram Jain Trust, which manages at least 13 such hostels across the country.
The trust has moved the Madhya Pradesh High Court with a writ petition to hand over the custody of the 21 minor children to them and direct the Indore administration to open the sealed hostel. Parents of some of the children also turned up for the court hearing and alleged their children had been illegally taken away by government authorities.
Arguing that the action of the state authorities was “illegal, horrifying and traumatising (to) the minor children”, the trust submitted that “the respondents have illegally kidnapped 21 minor girl children from the lawful custody of the petitioner (the trust) and have further detained them illegally”.
“The petitioner admits the girl children only on the request of their parents or legal guardians, in respect of which the petitioner society maintains complete documentation and record, including the consent form from the parents or legal guardians of the child concerned,” the petition read.
Among the parents who turned up at the HC was the father of two daughters aged 10 and 7, who told the court that he was “completely satisfied with the care and services of the petitioner”.
“After going through the management and facilities of the hostel, the applicant (father) has handed over the physical custody of his daughters trusting the petitioner that in the best interest of his daughters, the petitioner shall take care of their education, food, safety, well-being, security, etc,” the father told the court.
He also submitted that “his daughters never had any complaint or inconvenience from the petitioner” and were “happy and satisfied with the services rendered by the petitioner”.
The lawyer for the trust, Vibhor Khandelwal, said the authorities did not follow proper guidelines while taking the children into their custody.
“Basically there is a procedure for sending a child to a childcare home. The inspection committee sent the children without following due procedure or conducting an enquiry. They have sealed the premises without following any procedure,” he told The Indian Express.
