The July 29 episode of rescuing a 26-year-old woman and her two children aged 6 and 2 years from her husband in a pathetic condition near Chittoor has made the Disha app a buzzword in the district.
A couple from Chittoor town got married seven years ago. The husband used to work as a lecturer in a junior college, but was recently terminated. His wife is a nurse at a private hospital. Due to family disputes, they had been living separately for three years. The children were staying with their mother. In May, the woman, residing in Chittoor, tested positive for COVID-19 and was admitted to the district COVID hospital. When she returned home after 15 days, she could not find her children. Suspecting her husband’s hand in it, she rushed to his village on Chittoor outskirts only to be beaten up by the former. She lodged a complaint with the Chittoor urban police in this matter.
While the police were holding a series of counselling sessions to the couple, on July 29 the woman got information from her husband’s neighbourhood that he was ruthlessly beating the children and was reportedly trying to put them in an orphanage. The woman accompanied by her younger brother rushed to the village and picked up the emaciated children.
Chased and attacked
While they were on their way to the Government Hospital at Chittoor, they were chased and intercepted by her husband and his maternal uncle. The duo inflicted bleeding injuries on the woman and her brother and were trying to flee along with the children when the thought of the Disha app suddenly flashed in the mind of the nurse’s brother and he touched the SOS icon on the phone. In a matter of 10 minutes, a Blue Colts party from Chittoor Taluk police station rushed to the spot near Mapakshi Cross on the Chittoor-Vellore highway. The husband and his uncle were taken into custody while the injured siblings and the shocked children were rescued and rushed to the area hospital.
Superintendent of Police S. Senthil Kumar says it is a good sign that the Disha app has posted its first success by rescuing a mother and her children from distress. “The campaign for the app will be further intensified on a mission mode. We have involved almost all the police personnel in the district to make everyone aware of the app which is a good means to usher in women-friendly police administration,” he says.
