“I want to go back to my village and see my parents. I want to study there.” This is the wish of a 12-year-old girl who is stranded as a child labour in a house of a teacher couple at Padunja in uppinangady. This little girl is said to be mentally and physically tortured by a teacher couple.

Sundari, the child who has been employed as domestic worker is the daughter of Chengappa and Savithramma, residents of Konapura of Hirehalli near Kushalnagar.

This newspaper discovered Sundari and asked her as to how she landed up as a domestic labour. Narrating her hard luck story, innocent Sundari said: “The man of this house had come to my village to meet his relatives. It was then that he met my father and asked his permission to take me as a domestic maid to his house, along with the assurance that my education will be continued.”

She added that with her father’s permission, the man himself had received her TC from her school. Thus 2 years ago Sundari who was then in 5th standard came to Uppinangady dreaming of a rosy future where she could work to supplement the income of her family.

But the the destiny’s decision for Sundari was different. After coming to Uppinangdy, she says that she was not sent to the school and was instead given all household work from cleaning the house to washing clothes. She was also responsible for bathing the four pet dogs in the house and then picking arecanuts from the plantation.

She also revealed that she was beaten up mercilessly with a club everyday by the teacher couple without any rhym or reason.

“Unable to bare the atrocities I had requested them to send me back to my village. But everytime they slapped me,” says the child with damp eyes.