THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A nine-year-old boy was severely beaten up, his hands twisted and then hurled against the wall by his step-father in Valiyathura on the night of June 15. The boy is said to have broken his left hand, has a hair-line fracture in the right, a clot in his left eye and contusions on his face.
The boy’s sister, who is 11 years old, is also said to have been brutalised by the step-father. The accused is absconding. Hearing the cries of the children, locals informed Childline whose activists rushed the children to the SAT Hospital. The girl, who had only minor bruises, was shifted to Sree Chithra Home.
Kerala State Commission for the Protection of Child Rights has ordered that the children should be produced before the district Child Welfare Committee once the boy is discharged from the hospital. The mother, said to be a tribal of the ‘malai vedan’ tribe, is fully dependent on the accused and therefore, it is felt, would be incapable of providing for the children.
Sources said the children could be shifted to any of the welfare institutions in the state. It was only three months ago the mother and her two children accompanied the accused to Valiyathura from her house in Pathanamthitta. The mother said she got close to the accused after she was deserted by her husband whom she said had remarried.
The mother was also very protective of her partner. She said the boy was beaten up only because he refused to study. Those who had visited the boy at the hospital said that he was addicted to mobile. “He was playing with the mobile, not once looking up,” an eye witness said. A doctor was also seen advising the mother to take the mobile from the boy as he had a clot in his right eye.
