VILLUPURAM: A 55-year-old man claimed his wife, an inmate of Anbu Jothi Ashram that was shut down in February, has been missing. The missing incident came to light when the man, S Nagaraj, came to meet his wife at the Home in Kundalapuliyur village in the district on Wednesday, hoping to meet his wife.
The man, an agricultural labourer, filed a complaint with the police at a time when the four member National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) team, led by IPS officer Patil Ketan Baliram, was at the facility as part of their investigation into the claims of human trafficking and torture of inmates.
Nagaraj said his wife, P Devi (52), was shifted to the home in Villupuram from a facility in Palakkad in Kerala in July 2022. “Eight months ago, the authorities of the Kerala home told me my wife was sent here. When I telephoned the home owner Jubin Baby (now remanded in judicial custody) to meet my wife, he didn’t let me even speak to her. He asked me to come to the home and directly see her,” said Nagaraj.
But Nagaraj, who was in Madurai as part of his work, said he was able to come to the home only on Wednesday. “The officers here are now saying the home is shut down and my wife is not in the alternate facility (Mundiyambakkam government hospital), where the rescued inmates were shifted, also. I don’t know what to do,” he said.
Meanwhile, NHRC officials spoke to 20 former inmates of the Villupuram home at Mundiyambakkam government hospital on Tuesday and took note of their complaints of ill-treatment and torture, said official sources.
Moreover, following the sealing of two rooms of AnbuJothi Ashram by DR G Anand, a member of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) on March 14, human rights activists in questioned his authority to seal the rooms when the facility was still under the watch of CB-CID for investigation purposes. It’s alleged NCPCR had neither issued a statement nor involved in the issue.
Official sources confirmed only the revenue department has the full authority to seal the home.
When TNIE asked Vikravandi tahsildar Adhi Sivashankara Kumari Mannan about it, he said, “The commission member is equal to a cabinet member. He visited the facility and said some of the victims may be minors when they were admitted here, and so, the commission is interested to investigate the issue. He also insisted on sealing the two rooms, and we are to obliged to do what he says as he is from the commission. So we let him seal it.”