Social worker Sister lily Baretto, who ran an orphanage Ujjwal Niketan for nearly two decades before it was shut down earlier this year, has been arrested from Delhi on Sunday. Baretto is facing charges of “cruel treatment” of inmates at the orphanage.
The city police had registered multiple cases against lily earlier in July. Baretto is also accused of promoting Christianity because some Hindu children were adopted from her orphanage by a Christian couple from Mangalore.
Ujjwal Niketan was shut down in February this year, after several raids by the Child Welfare Committee (CWC) last November and this February. Then in July, police registered a case against her after two teenage girls, who were shifted to another shelter after Ujjwal Niketan was shut down, testified against her in front of a Magistrate.
The victims aged 13 and 17 has also complained about sexual assaults against the driver of the shelter home. The child welfare committee also lambasted the city police after they failed to arrest Baretto.
A raid on the orphanage in the first week of July revealed that till December 2016, there were 20 girls at the home and that it was not maintaining proper records.
“Baretto had been produced in the court on Monday from where she has been sent to judicial custody,” Sandeep Kumar, the investigation officer, said.