PANJIM: An ailing mother of an eight-year-old girl has lodged a police complaint against members of the Child Welfare Committee and caretakers at Apna Ghar for harassing and threatening her family. The woman has also accused the staff of falsely admitting the juvenile at the shelter home where she alleged that the cilld was subjected to cruelty.
“Last Saturday, my daughter ran away from Apna Ghar and reached our house at Sanquelim. She told me that the members at Apna Ghar lock her in the bathroom and beat her. The caretakers had once beaten her on her head. She is also not given proper food,” the complainant, said in her letter to Old Goa Police Station, a copy of which is in possession of Herald. In the two-page complaint, the mother has also quoted her child saying that the staff at the State-run home also assault other inmates.
Her daughter, who was picked from the Mapusa bus stand mistaken to be a beggar and lodged at Apna Ghar, had escaped last Saturday but was sent back to the shelter-cum-remand home. The distressed mother, backed by NGO Savera, spoke on the ordeal.
The police had picked the minor girl when the mother was admitted to a Mapusa hospital. At a press conference on Monday, the mother claimed that the police mistook her daughter for a beggar and lodged her at Apna Ghar four months ago. “I have all the medical papers with me to prove that I was admitted to the hospital. My daughter was playing outside from where the police took her to Apna Ghar. I pleaded a number of times to the CWC to hand over my daughter, but they threatened to file a case against me,” she alleged. “The staff said my daughter was found begging but we are not into it. I eke out my living by working in different houses,” she added.
After her daughter escaped from the remand home, it was the mother who informed the institute that she was back. She was taken back to Apna Ghar late Saturday night.
Savera Chief Tara Kerkar questioned why Apna Ghar had not reported that the inmate was missing to the police station and had unofficially acted on the case. “What do Apna Ghar staffers want to hide? They took the child back late night. Why did they not lodge a missing child’s complaint?” she asked.
The complainant’s son was also lodged at Apna Ghar about two years ago, which she again claims was falsely done. In a letter to the Directorate of Women & Child Department, the mother has requested for her children’s custody. If she is denied her ‘rights’, the woman has threatened to commit suicide with her two-year-old child.
Savera said it would approach the Goa Human Rights Commission seeking justice for the woman and action against the CWC and Apna Ghar staff.
Director of Women and Child Department Deepak Desai denied the allegations stating the preliminary inquiry has not established the woman’s version. “In our preliminary inquiry, these allegations are not proven. I even tried to contact her children but they are not at the institution and are in fact lodged at a private shelter home,” he said.
