JOIN USThe police arrested a ragpicker on Monday for pushing three children into beggary and physically torturing them.
The arrested - identified as Devaraj (in pic) - often thrashed and burnt with cigarette butts the faces of the three children of Fathima, 25, with whom he had an affair for the last one month. Devaraj had also forced them into beggary.
The children have been rescued and handed over to the Vyalikaval police, who later sent them to the custody of the Child Welfare Committee (CWC).
Fathima was married to one Tangaraj about six years ago and had parted ways with him recently. The couple have a five-year-old daughter and sons aged three and four years respectively. She worked as a helper at wedding halls in Vyalikaval and stayed by the roadside. She met Devaraj and started an affair with him, the police said.
Devaraj wanted to marry Fathima and asked her to desert her daughter and the four-year-old son. He started torturing her after she refused to do so. Devaraj often thrashed the children and physically harassed them, the police said.
Soumya, who rescued the children, said she spotted them weeping near the LPO park. “They were not given food. I took them to my house, offered them food and clothes,” she told Deccan Herald.
Soumya informed her husband Arun Kumar about this. Kumar, along with his friends, traced Devaraj and Fathima in a shed near Ayyappa Swami temple on 18th cross, handed him over to the police and lodged a complaint.
The children were reluctant to leave Soumya when they were handed over to the CWC and pleaded that they would stay back with her. The police have booked Devaraj under Section 323 (voluntarily causing hurt) of the IPC and the Juvenile Justice Act.