The only good part is that the neighbours didn't mind their own business. When they heard the children wailing and crying at abnormal decibel levels.
In a shockingly disturbing child abuse incident to have come to light, three children – aged three, four and six-year-old - were being brutally assaulted with sharp objects and even being burnt with iron rods by their own father and stepmother. So severe were the injuries being inflicted upon the three of them that JP Nagar Police in Bengaluru have arrested the couple and booked them with an attempt to murder charges.
The accused are Tamil Selvan (30), who is an autorickshaw driver and his second wife Sathya, believed to be in her late twenties. As per the information shared by police sources, Selvan married Sathya around six months ago, and two years after his wife Anjali passed away. Selvan and Anjali had three children, two boys aged six and four and a three-year-old girl.
The couple, along with their three children, moved into their fourth-floor building in KSRTC Layout in JP Nagar. At first, the neighbours ignored the wailing cries of the children and put them down to a simple case of mischief mongers being disciplined. Till they increased by the day.
Complainant Ranjeet Kumar K (32), a resident on the first floor of the same building, decided to once check on the family. Once the couple even sent their children begging at a temple in a nearby area when Kumar approached the parents and offered financial assistance with one of the children. His assistance was refused and he was offered to mind his own business.
Till June 21, the distressing cries and wailings became unbearable not just for the children but neighbours as well and they collectively decided to go and check on themselves. On checking, they found the six-year-old lying on the floor with soles of his feet bleeding.
In an interview given to Bangalore Mirror, Kumar said, "His father had a hacksaw blade in his hand. Soon after he saw us, he put it aside. The two other children, fearing for their lives, had crawled under a cot and were sobbing underneath." After Kumar informed the police, he rescued the three children and took them to a private hospital nearby.
The gruesome, gory details of child abuse
As per the horrors narrated by children to Kumar, their father and stepmother wanted them dead. The eldest child's shoulders had burn wounds, left by an iron box and electric coiled water heater. His father would use a screwdriver and a hammer to hurt his limbs. There were also burn marks and injury marks left by sharp weapons all over the bodies of all three children. They used to sleep in the balcony where the police found blood all over the balcony floor.
After seeing the children in such a pitiable condition, even the cops pooled in money and they were taken to a private hospital. From whereon they were shifted to the paediatric ICU at Victoria Hospital. The matter has been duly taken to Child Welfare Committee. Meanwhile, the couple has been remanded to judicial custody.
California House of Horrors
The deeply disturbing incident immediately reminded some of the equally horrific case of California House of Horrors. The 13 children of David and Louise Turpin were found shackled and malnourished and abused in their suburban California home. The home later came to be called the House of Horrors. The parents would beat up their children, strangle them, chained them to furniture and even starved them as a part of the intense cycle of abuse that dated back to at least ten years. The parents, 15 months after being arrested, were rightfully sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.
