Rubbishing the State Government’s claim that it has taken several steps to facilitate a better living for the inmates of Nari Niketan, National Women Commission members, who had inspected the State-run shelter home for close to seven hours on Monday said they had found several shortcomings there.
Rekha Sharma who led the two-member team had interacted with several inmates during the inspection on Monday. She said that the shelter home remaining short of right sanitation facilities, the inmates had not been provided with nutritious food and proper medical check-ups on regular basis. She said she would soon submit a report to the Centre and the State Government on the state of things they had noticed during the inspection and interaction.
Sharma said that their interaction with some of the inmates made it clear that the two inmates who died recently had died due to lack of nutritious food. “It was not that they died due to illness. They died because they were suffering from acute malnutrition. Besides, another cause that spawned their deaths was lack of medical facilities, including regular medical check-ups. These two things combined to cause their death,” Sharma said.
Asked on the issue of alleged rape and abortion of a deaf inmate of Nari Niketan by unidentified persons, she said the sad fact is that police arrest those promptly who are not rightly politically connected, hinting that the persons responsible for the heinous crime might be politically connected. “Though police claimed to have arrested nine persons in connection with the case they all seem to be small fries. The big fishes who seem to have committed the crime are still roaming free under the nose of administration and police,” she added, echoing what the State BJP leaders have been insisting since the row came into focus.
However, Sharma refused to disclose details of what they had seen during the inspection/interaction. “We would submit a report to the Central and the State Government in due course which would contain the details,” she added.
Sharma further said that they were surprised to find out that some of the inmates who had expressed wish to go back to their homes were not allowed to do so. The district officials did nothing to help them to go back homes, she said.
Quizzed over whether human trafficking was the reason why they were not allowed to go back home, she said she would not comment anything on it. “However, SWC members who had earlier inspected Nari Niketan had raised the issue. We feel the matter should be thoroughly probed from this angle too,” she added.
Sounding surprised over the role of the Chief Medical Officer (CMO), Sharma said he was blissfully unaware of what was happening in the home. “When we asked him how he felt with the state of things he pretended that he had no whiff of knowledge of what was going on. This is surprising,” she said.
“We were surprised again as there was nobody during our inspection who could enlighten us about who the director of the social welfare department is. He along with the department officers is squarely responsible for what has happened there,” she said.
Asked to comment on the Government officers having earlier given a clean chit, saying that there was nothing wrong in the home, Sharma said that political executives should not take the department officers at their face value. “They had better periodically see things for themselves,” she said.
Uttarakhand Women Commission chairperson Sarojini Kaintura said that during her past inspection of Nari Niketan, she had raised the same issues now NWC members have raised. “Accordingly, the State Government formed a committee to conduct an inquiry into the issues thus raised. I talked to NWC members and discussed several issues. There is nothing special to read into the inspection. The members visit the State once in eight or nine months in a year by way of routine. And this visit is a routine one too,” she averred.