Injury to girl in Kerala Child Welfare Committee-run shelter; 3 caregivers held

Thiruvananthapuram, Dec 3 (SocialNews.XYZ) Police on Tuesday recorded the arrest of three caregivers working at a shelter run by the Kerala State Council for Child Welfare (KSCCW), for causing injuries to a two-and-a-half-year-old girl child.

The police have charged the three women – Ajitha, Maheswari and Sindhu under the POCSO Act.

The general secretary of the KSCCW, Arun Gopi told the media that as soon as he came to know about the incident he reported the matter to the local police station and also to hospital authorities, where the girl child was subsequently treated.

According to the reports, the toddler had the habit of urinating on the bed and enraged by this Ajitha pinched her, causing injury to the child’s private parts.

Action was taken against the two other ayahs as they did not report the incident to higher ups, after coming to know about this.

The incident surfaced when the child was given a bath by a new caregiver and she started crying.

When the girl continued crying, a few more caregivers came in to check and saw that there were injury marks on her body and the matter was reported to higher officials.

“When we came to know about it we informed the concerned regulatory authorities and the girl underwent a medical check-up,” said Gopi and added that the child is fine now.

Incidentally the state-owned KSCCW takes care of children and this toddler and her sister who is one-year-old is also an inmate.

These two kids were admitted to the KSCCW after their father committed suicide. The mother of the girls had died earlier.

There are 130 staff members, of which 103 are caregivers and all of them are casual employees.

Gopi said this is the first time that there has been such a complaint and all the three will be terminated from their job with immediate effect.

Source: IANS