14-year-old mentally disabled girl kept chained by parents for 3 years

RUDRAPUR: Indrajeet Singh was on his third cup of tea on Wednesday afternoon when his eyes met with a bizarre sight of a young girl shackled in chains walking past his shop in Rudrapur.
“The girl was taking slow, deliberate steps. I was shocked to see that she was dragging her feet because they were tied together with an iron chain,” said Singh, a former councillor in the municipal corporation from Indira Colony who runs a mobile phone shop.“I called out to her and gave her food and tea. I also informed police who took her away,” he said.
After investigation, police found that the girl, Chandni, was mentally disabled and the daughter of Narayan Das, a resident of Subhash Colony. The 14-year-old had been kept chained for years by her parents who were too poor to afford treatment.
This is not the first instance of a disabled person shackled in chains in the hill state, where 59,081 people are drawing a disability pension. In October, TOI had reported the case of 22-year-old Pankaj Rana in Rudraprayag who had been kept chained ever since he was born. Rana was suffering from quadriparesis, a disease which renders limbs immobile as well as aphasia which affects the comprehension of speech. Rana’s mother, a widow, could not take her son to the hospital for treatment as she didn’t have enough money.
Talking to TOI on Wednesday, circle officer (CO) city, Swatantra Kumar Singh, said that the father of the girl was a daily wager. “The girl is mentally unstable but it is beyond the family’s means to get her proper medical treatment. They said that she was tied in chains for the past three years to keep her from running away,” Singh said.
Narayan Das, the father, told TOI that Chandni behaved like any other child during her growing up years. “But in the past few years, she started behaving abnormally and we realized that she was of unsound mind. After she attacked our neighbours, we decided to keep her tied in chains.”
Das said that they took her to a government hospital where doctors suggested that she should be treated in a private hospital with advanced facilities. “We do not have money to get her treated at a private hospital. We also don’t want to admit her to any government-run mental asylum as we don’t know how the staff may behave with her,” Das said.
The circle officer said that the child welfare committee (CWC) and the local administration has been informed of the incident. After the news of the girl roaming the streets spread, some offers of help poured in.
The circle officer said that police and a social organisation, Rudrapur Rising, have offered to help with the girl’s treatment.