Two shattered families have been brought together, thanks to the initiative of a counselling centre and helpline run inside the City Police Commissioner’s office.

In a recent case, two sisters aged 15 and 21, absconded from their home unable to tolerate the verbal abuse from their mother, a teacher in a private school.  This was a lower middle class family rocked by problems right from the beginning. With the father unemployed, the mother was the sole bread winner with her meagre earnings.

She had a very tough time raising her children. The elder girl Latha has completed her graduation and the younger girl is doing her class nine. Latha was desperate to do her postgraduation but was forced to take up a job at a BPO to support her family.  However, the mother kept taunting her for the timings she came home, for her friendship with male colleagues and tried to control her continuously.

One fine day, Latha left the house along with her sibling  and there was no word about them for 11 days. The desperate mother contacted many and was finally advised to approach Parihar, the family counselling unit of Vanitha Sahaya Vani, a women’s helpline. Parihar managed to trace the daughters and brought the family members for counselling.

Parihar in-charge, Hema Deshpande said, “This incident should serve as an eyeopener to all families on the terrible impact strong verbal abuse can have on children. The parents were always involved in verbal disputes. Despite doing so much for the family, the mother has repeatedly questioned her daughter about her fidelity and constantly abused her. The father was not able to support either of the  warring parties and struggled to take a neutral ground.”

After receiving a written assurance from the mother a couple of days ago that she would not abuse her daughters anymore and getting an assurance from the daughters that they would return home, Parihar has set right this broken home.

Property dispute

The other familial dispute revolves around Imran Khan and his family. Owing to some major disagreement, the 80-year-old father, a retired government employee, was staying all by himself at Mysore Road and the mother and five children, including three daughters, at another house near Cantonment.

The father, wanted to sell off a site he had purchased with his earnings in Bangalore West but the original documents were in the custody of the eldest daughter, Fanaa, who was married. She refused to part with them. It was then that the senior citizen approached the Elders Helpline (No. 1090), run by the Bangalore Police in coordination with the Nightingales Medical Trust.

Bhagyalakshmi, coordinator at the helpline said, “Despite the father assuring them that he would share the money with the family members, no one was willing to trust him due to their past problems.”

The helpline held countless sessions between the family members and the father. Finally, the eldest daughter relented and the property was sold to a purchaser in the presence of counsellors of the helpline at the registration office a couple of days ago. The amount was shared between all.

“Right from A to Z, we got involved and now the major family dispute has been redressed and the members are on amicable terms,” the coordinator said.