A first information report filed against an alleged orphanage in Madhya Pradesh’s Indore reads like a horror story, cataloguing the various forms of abuse and assault that 21 minor girls rescued from the institution were subjected to: being forced to parade naked in front of other girls, thrown from the first floor, forced to inhale chilli powder smoke, being burned by hot tongs, and starvation for days, all part of punishments doled out for supposed mistakes.
Filed on Wednesday at Indore’s Vijay Nagar police station, the FIR is based on the statements given by the girls before the district Child Welfare Committee (CWC). It names five women, including the current and former managers and caretakers of the facility, as alleged perpetrators.
The children also alleged that the staff had given away two infants to some people outside the facility and that nobody knew where they were. The staff would also force the children to harm one another, the FIR says. When the children reached out to the NGO’s director Shikha Jain about their ordeal, she did not pay heed to their complaints and asked them to forget everything, the FIR adds.
