Hyderabad:
Nartana, the six-year-old child from Nellore district of Andhra Pradesh, who was allegedly tortured brutally by her own mother, has now been shifted to a hospital in Chennai. Her body is full of bruises and she is traumatised beyond imagination.
Dr Balaramachandran, a Pediatrician says, "She suffers from multiple injuries of various ages perpetrated on her, Liver injury, mild fracture in the skull.''
Doctors say Nartana is out of danger and will be fit in two weeks to return to Andhra Pradesh but they are worried that she may take quite a long time to recover from the emotional trauma she has gone through.
The alleged tormentors of the child are her mother, Nagachaitanya, who was a science teacher in a government school, and her alleged lover, who runs a private school in Nellore. Both the accused have been sent to judicial custody for two weeks.
No relative has come forward to take care of the child.
Usha Rani, Director of the Women and Child Welfare Department, Andhra Pradesh says, ``In this kind of situation, we can take over the child and put her in a good school because the Juvenile Justice Act provides protection to every child who is in need of care and protection. Here she is not getting a protective environment at home.''
Child right activists point out that beyond the outrage about this shocking case of abuse, the larger concern is about the safety of the child in places that are presumed to be safe for the child. That there is no societal or regulatory mechanism to monitor the status of the child and no scope for preventive or corrective action is the big worry.