Staffers under scanner in juvenile home
Activist demands that FIR be filed against WCD employees for causing delays in investigating molestation of minors
A week after an FIR was lodged against two minors, accusing them of sexually molesting other children, the Yerwada police has received a letter from a city based child activist, alleging that the juvenile home staff have been negligent in reporting the crime and have hidden facts from the police. The activist, Yamini Adbe, had also written a letter late last month, describing the mismanagement and heinous activities going on at the juvenile home.
In a letter addressed to the senior Police Inspector of Yerwada police station, she has demanded that an FIR be lodged against Meenakshi Birajdar, Women and Child Development officer and Gajanan Padhgam, the juvenile home probation officer, under section 21(1) and 166 (A) of POSCO Act, 2013. She has accused both of them of causing intentional delays in filing the FIR registered on September 9, about two minors being sexually molested inside the juvenile home.
According to her letter, dated September 10, both these staff members had information about the sexual molestation much before they actually filed the complaint. Her letter reads, “The WCD Officer came to know about the sexual abuse on the 7th day of September 2016, but she did not make an FIR immediately and rather preferred to go back to her office and wrote a letter to the Superintendent of the observation home. Next day the probationary officer got a letter from her at 10.30 am, but again called the child victim and inquired about the facts in the afternoon. The child gave more details which were hidden from the police and a complaint was lodged with partial truth in the night at 23.31 pm.” She has even cited the medical report of the victim, stating that he was ‘being abused sexually for the past many months and not only by these two elder kids but by many more children repeatedly’.
Her letter also cites her earlier concerns of finding condoms on the juvenile home premises. Her letter reads, “Four months ago, some children had filled water in a condom and kept it on the table of the nurse. There were no investigations done for the said event. It was obvious that such material is accessible to the children of the special home and was a certain possibility that there were cases of organised sexual abuse inside. The matter was neither investigated nor reported.”
She has also brought this forth in front of the Commissioner Women and Child Development department. In her latest letter addressed to him on September 15, she said, “There are repeated child sexual abuse incidents taking place in special home as is mentioned in the medical report of Sassoon Hospital of the victim. Many other boys are also involved in such practices for the past few months.” Commenting on the safety of the victim being kept in the same home, she wrote, “The most disturbing fact is that your officers did not bother to shift the victim from the home to a safer place even after knowing that more offenders are staying inside the home.”
While her letters have been eye-openers about the gross misconduct going on at the juvenile home, there are multiple aspects that are coming to the surface slowly. Her letter to the commissioner reads, “The staff with known criminal background is posted there who supplies the intoxicants, gutkha and other material. How do you expect the children to improve? There are no routine or training programs run by WCD. The home seems to be a training place for various addictions, sexual offences and crimes for the children.”
The Yerwada police, however, have taken cognizance of the matter. Mukund Mahajan, the senior PI said, “We have been taking this matter seriously. We will look into the matter of the complaint given by Adbe ma’am.”
The Women and Child Development department however, was unavailable to comment on the matter, citing the unavailability of their seniors due to festivals.
gargi.verma@goldensparrow.com
Originally published on The Golden Sparrow
