Three inmates who had fled from an orphanage in Keonjhar on Wednesday were rescued by the Jhumpura police on Thursday and handed over to the institution’s authorities.
Subarna Munda, Sanjib Purty and laxman Munda who were sheltered in the Manoj Manjari Sishu Bhawan, were found crying in Jhumpura market. Some locals informed the police about this. The children confessed that they had fled from the orphanage as the physical torture to them in the institution became unbearable. “We are brutally beaten with sticks for silly mistakes and our meals were stopped if we disobeyed the orders of the authorities,” Subarna Munda said.
“Cleaning toilets and hostel and gardening are compulsory for us and any negligence resulted in punishment,” lamented Sanjib Purty.
The children had walked all the way to Jhumpura, 25 km from Keonjhar. After medical examination, they were handed over to the institution staff who arrived on the spot to receive them. The district Collector, who happens to be the president of the institution, claimed his ignorance about the missing children and ordered a probe into the matter.
During inquiry, the inmates also disclosed the death of an orphan girl child on October 22 due to negligence and that she was immediately buried in order to conceal the fact.
Earlier, allegations of child abuse, sexual harassment and fund misappropriation had dragged the institution and its secretary to court for which cases are pending at the State Women Commission, Human Rights Commission and High Court. In November 2008, an incident of 13 inmates being beaten and wounded by the secretary had come to notice while 16 inmates who had left the institution in protest of physical torture were rescued by the police from the Keonjhar railway station in March 2011. A seven-year-old dumb girl, Malati Majhi, has gone missing from the hostel in Sidhamath campus since last few years and the institution has shown no concern to trace her as yet.
In another incident, a small blind orphan girl, Sushma Juang, drowned while she was taken for bath in an unsafe pond, but no case or action has been initiated against the authorities. There is a long list of such incidents which has put a question mark on the safety and wellbeing of the inmates in the Sishu Bhawan. People’s forums have demanded a high-level independent inquiry which would help check such crimes in the orphanage.