KURNOOL: Two days after the incident went viral on social media platforms, where a nine-year-old girl was found crying outside the fortified sub-jail in Kurnool to meet her mother, the government responded and sheltered the girl at a childcare institute on Monday.
It can be recalled that the girl’s mother, identified as S Khaja Bhi, was sent to judicial remand on charges of theft on December 12. Later, the video of a girl crying loudly outside the jail pleading to the authorities to let her meet her mother went viral on social media on Saturday and was reported in these columns on Sunday with the headline, ‘Nine-yr-old crying outside Kurnool sub-jail allowed to meet mother’.
Responding to this, Andhra Pradesh State Commission for Protection of Child Rights chairman K Appa Rao directed the district officials concerned departments to send detailed reports about the whereabouts and living conditions of the girl.
Following the instructions Kurnool district Child Welfare Committee (CWC) chairperson S Jubaida Begum, along with District Child Protection Officer (DCPO) T Sarada, and Child Help Line - 1098 district coordinator D Sunkanna, visited the girl’s residence at Dabaragunta, a slum area near Vaddigiri in Kurnool city, and took stock of the situation of the girl. As per the Juvenile Justice Act, the girl was produced before the CWC from which the girl was shifted to the Government Girls Home at Pedapadu near the city outskirts for better care and protection of the child, said the DCPO.
The DCPO further informed that Khaja Bhi has a total of five children, including four males and one female. “Of them, two were living in Hyderabad with their relatives and another two were living with their grandparents and this girl was now shifted to a Government home. The remaining two boys who were also in the position of need and care will be shifted to childcare institutes,” she added.
It was learnt that Khaja Bhi was a habitual offender in theft cases and even police cases were booked against her in various police stations in the city including the recent theft case at Kurnool town-II police station.
The 72-year-old grandmother of the girl S Jamal Bhi told TNIE, “We are unable to take care of the five children. Two were sent to Hyderabad where her son who does daily wage labour and two children were working at a fast food centre in Kurnool.”
Jamal Bhi further said that Khaja Bhi’s uncle Usman has been taking care of the children and urged the government to support the children by providing education for their better future.