New Delhi:
Slowly, the family portrait of two-year-old Baby Falak is being completed. A day after her mother was traced to Rajasthan and brought to Delhi, Falak's elder sister, Sanobar, has been found in Bihar and brought to Delhi. Her five-year-old brother remains missing.
While Falak is still in critical condition in Delhi's AIIMS hospital, doctors have examined Sanobar, who is three years old, and said that she is healthy. She is currently at a welfare home.
A 22-year-old woman named Munni is Falak's mother, according to the Delhi Police. She is not aware that her youngest child was subjected to severe physical abuse by those who looked after her - a long line of adults who Munni knew only loosely. There were reports that she was meant to meet Falak today. Doctors at AIIMS say the police has made no formal request to let Munni meet Falak. Sources in the police say they will run DNA tests to confirm Munni's relationship with Falak before letting her visit the baby who shows "no deterioration or significant improvement" according to her doctors.
Falak was brought to AIIMS by a teen on January 18. Doctors at the trauma unit were shocked with the extent of the baby's injuries, which include burns from a hot clothes iron and human bites all over her face.
It took the Delhi Police weeks to locate Munni, who they say is being "treated as a victim and not an accused." Munni, originally from Bihar, was abandoned by her husband after they had three children. She was promised a job in Delhi by an acquaintance so she moved to the capital with her three children. Two women named Lakshmi and Kanta tried to persuade her into prostitution. When she refused, they encouraged her to marry a man from Rajasthan, promising that he would look after her children eventually. The man allegedly paid Rs. two lakh to the women for arranging his marriage. Munni moved to Rajasthan, leaving her children behind. Lakshmi and Kanta promised her that her second husband would eventually accept her sons and daughter.
Lakshmi then deposited Sanobar in Bihar with a relative. Falak was handed from one adult to another, till she ended up with the teen who brought her to hospital. She had eloped with a man named Rajkumar. He is still missing, and the police believe his arrest will help establish how, when and where Falak was tortured.