Boy in government-run home thrashed by guard, hospitalised
Mohammad M was caned as he did not go for lunch on time
A 14-year-old boy was hospitalised after he was allegedly beaten with a cane by a security guard at the government-run Boys’ Home located on Hosur Road.
Mohammad M, who worked in a bag-making unit, was lodged at the home after being rescued by Justice and Care, a non-governmental organisation.
He was waiting to return to his home town Bareilly in Uttar Pradesh. The Boys’ Home is run under the aegis of the Department of Women and Child Development (DWCD).
On Tuesday, the NGO noticed the boy was injured and demanded that he be sent to hospital immediately. He was treated at the Indira Gandhi Institute of Child Health and discharged later in the day.
Missed elbow fracture
Medical reports stated that the boy had narrowly missed an elbow fracture. The members of the Karnataka State Commission for Protection of Child Rights, who visited the boy at the hospital, said he was beaten 10 days ago with a cane by Suresh, a security guard, who also doubled as a staffer at the home.
“Though the boy was beaten ten days ago, the staff there gave him medicines twice a day and hushed up the matter. It would have never come to light, if the people from the NGO had not spotted it,” Nina Nayak, chairman of the Commission, said.
The boy was allegedly caned as he did not go for lunch on time. “There are 175 boys in the home and because of staff shortage, they use people from outsourced agencies to supposedly maintain discipline.
The security guard had no business taking care of the children at the home. The guard is 23 years old. How can he be expected to control boisterous boys,” asked Mamatha, another member of the Commission.
Even the Child Welfare Committee, which had settled the case, had not been informed about the incident. “The case is closed and the boy will travel back home on January 24,” Nayak said.
Though no case has been filed against Suresh, he has been fired from his job. The Commission said this was not the first case of beating reported at the home.
“There is no policy saying the children should not be touched. The solution they have for anything is violence. There is absolutely no concept of compassion,” Mamatha railed.
Though the incident happened on Tuesday morning, neither the Secretary nor the Director of DWCD was aware of it till late Tuesday night.
