The Hindu’s intervention provides shelter to physically challenged

He was driven away from his ancestral home by his relatives

Forty-year-old R. Suresh of Madurai uses his hands to walk and his legs to do nothing but as a support to drag his body. Born with weak lower limbs, he didn’t stop crawling ever since he began it as a toddler. And this gentleman was seen moving at a snail’s pace all over the Madras High Court Bench campus in Madurai on Wednesday.

When The Hindu made enquiries about the purpose of his visit to the court campus, he revealed that he had been driven out of his ancestral home by his brother, sisters and other relatives after snatching his bank passbook as well as ATM (Automated Teller Machine) card through which he was receiving family pension following the death of his mother, a retired government servant.

According to Mr. Suresh, a bachelor living in a two-storey house built by his maternal grandfather near the Meenakshi Sundareswarar Temple, his father died long ago and his mother, a former employee of Madurai Medical College, also passed away four years back. He was receiving his mother’s family pension in an account maintained in his name at the Union Bank of India branch at Town Hall Road.

His maternal aunts took a grudge against him and instigated his siblings to drive him out of the house. They also snatched his bank passbook as well as his ATM card. A complaint lodged with the city police did not evoke any response and hence he had filed a petition in the High Court seeking a direction for police intervention through advocate R. Madhava Govindan who offered his services free of cost.

One of the police personnel, drawn from the city police and deputed in civilian clothes in the High Court Bench for following up cases involving the police department, informed his higher officials about the enquiries made by the newspaper with the physically challenged person and on the same day, the police sprang into action and successfully mediated a compromise between him and his relatives.

The next day when the case came up for hearing before Justice N. Kirubakaran, the police informed the court that the physically challenged person had been accommodated in the house and he had given a written statement to withdraw the complaint lodged by him, a fact that was confirmed even by the petitioner’s counsel.