The ordeal of a seven-year-old boy, who was regularly beaten up by his stepmother and father, came to an end on Saturday after a group of neighbours in Tiruvottiyur intervened and rescued the boy.
Around 1 p.m. on Saturday, neighbours heard the boy crying but when they went to his house, his stepmother, R. Permila (28), shouted at them for interfering in her family’s affairs. However, the neighbours asked the couple to stop beating up the boy but they continued to thrash him.
The neighbours then alerted the Tiruvottiyur police, who reached the spot and took the boy to hospital where he was treated for hand and leg injuries and bruises on his stomach and hip. A case of child harassment was registered against the couple.
The boy was sent to a children’s home in Tiruvottiyur.
The police said Premila, who began living with the boy’s father, S. Rajan (30), a helper at a massage clinic in the city, after her husband abandoned her, was upset over not being able to bear a child. She took out her frustration on the boy.
Rajan’s wife had left him and their two sons, two years ago, and lives with another person in the neighbourhood.
