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Fear grips slums in Mumbai

Slums in Colaba and Cuffe Parade aren’t the same after the abduction and murder of two toddlers — the air is rife with rumours and everyone is a suspect, finds Kareena N Gianani

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“At three years, Karishma was so quick-witted...”“I didn’t cook for two days after she was found murdered… her skull smashed to pulp.”

“Her killer had bitten off some flesh from her right arm. Who
does that to a child?”
Three-year-old Darshan rocks back and forth in his mother’s lap and repeats these lines after her in an eerily sing-song voice. He looks around at their home in the Ambedkar Nagar slums at Cuffe Parade, bored, and tries to get out of the room. “You really want to step out of home?” asks his mother Soni Vanurappa, 25. Darshan blinks.

“No. Buddha mama (old uncle) will kill me too,” he says, and resumes rocking.

‘Kids know too much’
On January 17, Karishma Chavan was kidnapped from Sassoon Dock, where her mother and grandmother clean prawns. Another girl who was playing with Chavan later told the cops that the man had long hair and was a “buddha mama”. The next day, her body was found at Nariman Point Fire Brigade Depot, just metres away from where the body of another three-and-a-half year old girl, Jagruti Patel, was found on November 13. Patel was kidnapped from near her home in 5 Shiv Shakti Nagar, a slum area in Cuffe Parade, late at night on October 20.

Over the past two months, parents in Ambedkar Nagar and the surrounding slum areas of Ganesh Murthy Nagar, Gita Nagar, Machhimar Nagar and Shiv Shakti Nagar, and their children, aren’t the same anymore. At any hour of the day, toddlers are barely out of their parents’ lap, and pre-teens never out of their range of vision. In the evenings, locals say these slum areas were filled with teenage boys setting up carrom boards and children crowding around them, playing and having an evening snack.

Now, after dusk, the carrom boards and teenagers remain. But one can barely spot children in these lanes.

Before and after school, these areas are now filled with taxis carrying 5-7 children each, always accompanied by an adult. One such parent gets out of a taxi and briskly ushers children towards Shiv Shakti Nagar. She refuses to speak a word when asked about her new routine, yelling after the children who begin running in different directions. The taxi driver, Sanjay Kumar Dwivedi and the lady’s husband, says, “She wouldn’t want to risk a child wandering off somewhere if she stops to speak to you.”

Dwivedi says that almost every parent he knows now chooses to pick up and leave their children to school. “I have three children, and after the twin murders, when locals see me with my children, they randomly come and enquire whether the children are really mine, and whether I have any proof. I encourage them to ask my children, which they do,” he says. The exercise doesn’t irk Gaikwad one bit. “I am glad even strangers are interested in the safety of our children.”

Talking about sex
Child rearing has become complex for parents like Sunita Gaikwad, a resident of Ganesh Murthy slums, near Ambedkar Nagar. Gaikwad, 28, wasn’t sure of how she should tell her 8-year-old daughter, Priyanka, about sexual predators and safety. “I am sure educated parents know more about these things, but, well… I tried…” she trails off.

She calls Priyanka and asks, “What will you do if some distant mama (uncle) or male neighbour touches you somewhere, continuously pats your head, or asks you to accompany him for a treat?” Priyanka, conscious of being watched, shyly smiles and shakes her head. “Don’t touch!” says Gaikwad loudly, looking straight at her. “That’s what you’ll tell him, and immediately come and tell me.” Priyanka nods.

“I worked as a nanny at Colaba, but left my job after I heard of Karishma’s murder,” Gaikwad says.

She points to a cluster of shops. “They are all run by women who don’t want to do it anymore. They’d rather be at home with their children, who are frustrated at being cooped up all day.”

A few weeks ago, a child pointed towards a long-haired man in Ambedkar Nagar, and yelled that he looked like the man who had murdered Karishma. The man was beaten up mercilessly and left only after someone vouched that he was a harmless, mentally-disturbed beggar.

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