With the alleged sexual abuse of a 14-year-old girl of Mahatma Karunai Illam in Vilankurichi coming to light, all the 11 inmates of the home have been shifted to another home. The home was closed after the prime accused and founder of the unregistered home T. Jagan agreed to close it as it had flouted many rules.
Inspected
The home was closed after a team comprising District Child Protection Officer G. Vijaya and personnel from the Thudiyalur All Woman Police Station, Anti Human Trafficking Wing Police and other departments inspected it on Friday. An officer in the team said that a few months ago Jagan applied for registration of the home.
Clearance
“But he did not produce all the required clearance certificates. Moreover, he moved children to a new place from where he was operating it earlier without informing the District Child Protection Office,” the officer said. It is learnt that the relocation took place only about a week ago.
While the building was new and had some basic facilities, the home did not have a warden and the cook Chithra (who had an affair with the home’s founder) was the acting warden.
The home did not have CCTV cameras to ensure the safety of children from abuse and also did not have a watchman, counsellor, staffs to attend in case of medical emergencies and teacher.
The team informed the parents and relatives of the children in the home about the turn of events. The four girls were shifted to Mariyala and the boys to Don Bosco Anbu Illam. Chairman of the District Child Welfare Committee (CWC) P. Samson said that the committee will decide on relocating the children to other homes this Tuesday.
Meanwhile, the authorities concerned are in the process of identifying homes for such children near Vilankurichi, to relocate the children there (depending on vacancies), so that the children’s schooling will not be affected. If this effort does not yield result, the officials will try to relocate them to other homes and the children will be enrolled in nearby schools.
