Suspected case of deliberate neglect and starvation of girl

Seeking the help of the National Human Rights Commission and the Delhi Police, Ashok Agarwal, member of the Economically Weaker Section Treatment Monitoring Committee of Delhi, has asked the agencies to intervene on behalf of a one-year-old girl child, who seems to be a suspected case of deliberate neglect and starvation.

Speaking to The Hindu on Tuesday, the advocate said, “On August 26, a fellow advocate chanced upon this family of four outside Tis Hazari Court where the one-year-old girl child was in a deplorable physical health and grossly malnourished. He escorted them to my office.’’

“ It struck me that among the four members of the family, including the father, mother, a five-year-old male child and the girl child, the youngest was in strikingly poor health and highly malnourished. The mother was also a feeble-looking woman, while the father and the male-child were in a much better health,’’ wrote Mr. Agarwal in his letter.

The advocate consulted a senior Delhi Government health official about the child and was advised that the child be taken to a private hospital and given treatment under the free treatment facility for the poor. “While the mother showed some interest, the father was very reluctant, non-cooperative and obstinate, exhibiting a bad temperament. He gave lame excuses such as who would cook food for him if the child would be admitted since the mother would be held up at the hospital,’’ said Mr. Agarwal.

He added that the father refused to take the child to a private hospital and said “the maximum he was willing to do was to take the child to a government hospital in their own locality at Shastri Park”. Stating that his larger concern was the “deliberate neglect and starvation of the girl child, most likely at the instance of the father, as reflected by the shocking extent of malnutrition of the child’’, the advocate has appealed for help and speedy intervention.

The child’s name is Baby Tulsi and she lives with her parents at the temporary address of -- Gali No.25, Mustafabad, Delhi’’.