3 minors face unspeakable torture by dad, stepmom in Bengaluru; both parents held

Three young children were subjected to unspeakable physical torture for over a month by their 45-year-old father and 35-year-old stepmother at their fourth-floor home in KSRTC Layout, JP Nagar, South Bengaluru.

The children — two boys, aged six and four, and their three-year-old sister — were rescued by the police on Monday night after neighbours complained.

They are undergoing treatment at Victoria Hospital, police said.

What drove the neighbours to the family’s house was a particularly horrendous scream: The six-year-old was writhing in pain and his father was leaning on him, gashing his leg with an axle blade.

There was blood all over. The boy’s legs and shoulders were also burnt. His younger siblings, frightened to the core, were hiding under a cot.

The younger boy and the girl had multiple cuts and burn injuries all over their bodies.

Seeing the neighbours, the father threw the blade and escaped with his wife.

One of the neighbours, Ranjith Kumar K, told the police that the children faced extreme abuse.

Their father and stepmother cut the children’s legs with an axle blade, attacked them with a knife and burnt their bodies with a hot ladle. They were made to sleep in a three-foot corner of a room.

The children told the residents and the police that their stepmother would complain about them to the father as soon as he would return from work. The children’s biological mother had passed away a few months ago.

JP Nagar police have taken up a case under the Juvenile Justice Act and IPC Section 307 (attempted murder) against the children’s father and stepmother, and arrested them.

A court has remanded them in judicial custody.

The information has been passed to the Child Welfare Committee (CWC) for further necessary safety and welfare of the children, police said.