The story of a ‘careless’ care home in Jamdoli village

Jamdoli based mental asylum is in news once again and this time too for a wrong reason. Last year, the government-run shelter for mentally challenged children made headlines following deaths of 11 children in a short span. Now, the children have been running away but the administration doesn’t have a clue.

In last one and half months, three children have vanished from the care home and could not be traced. It is surprising that mentally challenged children have been jumping over high walls of the care home but the authorities did nothing to improve the system. The latest incident took place on Friday morning when 15-year old Kalu ran away in the wee hours but the authorities came to know about it in the morning through CCTV footage.

Kalu went to kitchen from the male wing and jumped the seven feet high wall while the caretakers were sleeping. It is learned that there is only one caretaker for a wing of 25 children. Another question is about not having a railing on top of the wall.

After the death of children last year, things improved a bit because of media coverage and subsequent visits by social justice and empowerment minister Arun Chaturvedi and top officials from the department but once the matter got over, staff was back to its usual self –indifferent and careless. However, the department is yet to take action against them.

“We have been continuously trying to improve things at the mental asylum. This time the boy jumped the wall. We would take action against careless caretakers,” said Amitabh Kaushik, Add Dir, dept for specially abled.

No trace of 3 children

10 September: 19-year old Bablu jumped the wall in the night.
17 September: Seven days later, another boy with the same name went missing from SMS Hospital. The caretakers went to drink water leaving the children unattended
27 October: Kalu jumped the wall.