13-yr-old boy ill-treated by stepmother, rescued

Nitish Sharma

Tribune News Service

Ambala, August 29

A 13-year-old boy, who lost his mother four years ago due to tuberculosis, had been living a miserable life after his stepmother refused to accept him. Following complaints from neighbours, a team of officers, including those from the police, rescued him on Tuesday.

The team was shocked to see the room where the boy lived.

District Child Protection Officer (DCPO) Megha Singla said, “The room was dimly lit and its roof leaked during rain. The boy bathed, washed his clothes and dishes, and even urinated in the same room.”

The boy had been living in the room, constructed outside the house, for two years.

“The boy said he was not allowed to enter the house. He was allowed only when relatives visited his parents,” Singla said.

After his mother’s death four years ago, his father married a woman from Jharkhand. As she refused to accept him, his grandfather started taking care of him. When he died two years ago, the boy was told to shift to the small room.

The boy, a student of Class VI in a government school, said: “My stepmother never gave me food. My father used to give me two chapattis from the four he got for himself. My stepmother used to quarrel with him over this.”

His father sells eggs for a living.

Neighbours told the team of officers that they had asked the school staff to refill his lunchbox with mid-day meal so that he could have it for dinner.

Child Welfare Committee (CWC) member Gurdev Singh said, “The father was afraid as his wife had threatened him to implicate him in a case of domestic violence. She told the team that she could not accept the boy as she was not told about the previous marriage and the child. She has a two-year-old daughter and is pregnant.”

The boy’s parents Dharamveer and Puja on Wednesday visited the CWC’s office. Puja reportedly apologised for mistreating the boy and agreed to accept him. The CWC, however, refused to hand over the boy to the parents.