Scores of mentally challenged people can be seen wandering on the streets in and around the IT corridor - apparently their number has increased significantly recently. The situation is not much different on city roads either.
These people receive the most humiliating treatment at the hands of the local people along the Attingal - Kazhakkoottam stretch, where one can see as many as 15 of these poor souls who need urgent medical care and attention. They walk several kilometres a day, talk to themselves and smile and laugh, attracting derision from residents. The mentally challenged people abandoned and wandering on the roads of the district require immediate attention from the authorities concerned.
Even though these mentally challenged persons have the same rights as other citizens, they are denied proper medical care and rehabilitation, which denies them a chance to lead a decent life. Being unaware of their rights, these hapless souls are in no position to complain, protest or fight against the injustice done to them.
Anyone with a kind heart who has travelled along the Kariavattom and Kazhakkoottam roads might have noticed and felt sympathies towards a middle-aged woman wandering in these areas with a bag and some cardboards in her hand. It is learnt that she hails from Chirayinkeezh and has a girl child who now lives in a poor home in the city. When City Express contacted her daughter, she said that there was nobody to take care of her mother, who developed a mental disease several years ago. “My mother leaves home early in the morning, collects some waste and keeps writing on cardboards and papers. Everyone used to tease me. It was owing to this that I decided to stay in the poor home to continue my studies,” she said.
“I felt sad seeing a shop owner near Mangalapuram Junction using abusive words at a mentally challenged man to drive him away from the shop. He then pushed the sick man away and even took a stick to make him run away. The reason simply was that he had many customers who detested the presence of that sick man,” said Sreeja S Nair, an engineering student.
However, this was not an isolated incident. In fact, numerous such instances of inhuman behaviour can be witnessed all along the stretch every day. “Neither the Social Welfare Department nor the police take into custody the mentally challenged people who wander on the streets. No one turns up to take them to a mental hospital or a nursing home nearby,” said a social worker who feeds two mentally challenged persons wandering near his home at Kazhakkoottam.
When contacted, the officials at the police stations along the Attingal - Kazhakkoottam stretch said that it was for the public and activists of NGOs to inform the nearest police station as soon as they find anyone wandering on the streets.