CHENNAI/TIRUVANNAMALAI:After a Dutch woman who had been living in Adi Annamalai village in Tiruvannamalai was allegedly assaulted by local residents, she was handed over to the local unit of NGO Udhavum Karangal on Thursday.
According to a volunteer who went to handle the case from Chennai, the woman has been diagnosed with an extreme form of psychosis and is extremely unstable. “When we made enquiries, we found that she had attempted to set the house she was living in ablaze... the men caught and stopped her. They beat her up,” said P N Sundaresan, the social worker.
After a video of this found it’s way online, district authorities took cognizance and immediately took her into custody and the VAO handed her over to the home. As the unit there is not equipped well enough to handle extreme cases such as these, the team attempted to get her shifted to a care facility in Chennai or at least committed to the care of the police or the local government hospital.
The tahsildar in charge of the area, R Murugan, confirmed that the woman had been handed over to Udhavum Karangal and that she was mentally not of sound mind. “We are conducting an enquiry into what happened and whether there was any assault,” he told Express. They also identified her as Arina (36), a Dutch national who entered the country sometime in 2013 and ended up in the district. “She lost her documents and has been roaming around here since then. She is a heavy marijuana smoker and spends most of her time in that pursuit,” said the Udhavum Karangal worker.
Officials with the district administration added that they would complete the formalities and allow her to be moved on Thursday. However, the NGO remained worried that it may be too late as she was extremely unstable and had attempted her kill herself all day. “She is trying very violently to harm herself and the medicines we have here haven’t worked on her. The police and the district authorities want us to wait a day but that may be a risky thing,” said Sundaresan.
Collector A Gnanasekaran told Express that the woman had been living in the locality since 2013.