Top administration officials of Indore have been sent notices by the Madhya Pradesh High Court regarding the shocking deaths of 17 disabled children at the Ankit Sewadham Ashram in Ujjain. The Indore bench of the court - which took suo motu cognisance of the issue -- has asked them to submit an inspection report within two weeks.
Those who received notices include the Chief Secretary, Principal Secretary, Commissioner of the Women and Child Development Department, Ujjain Collector, Superintendent of Police, District Women and Child Development Officer, and the operator of the Sewadham Ashram.
The deaths initially took place at the ashram in Indore - the Yug Purush Ashram. The children who died were severely anemic and malnourished.
At the Indore ashram, 10 children had died and more than 60 had fallen ill between June and July in 2024, with officials frequently citing "breathing difficulties" as the cause.
In response, the then Indore Collector Ashish Singh had revoked the recognition of that ashram and ordered the immediate relocation of 86 disabled children to Ujjain's Sewadham Ashram on December 25, 2024.
The move, intended as a corrective measure, has now come under scrutiny as deaths continued even after the transfer. Over the past 14 months, 17 of these children aged between 10 and 18 died.
The police registered a case at Bhairavgarh police station, conducted postmortems, and initiated an investigation. However, as reports of repeated deaths surfaced, the High Court intervened and directed that the matter be treated as a public interest litigation.
Dr Chinmay Chincholekar, RMO at Charak Bhavan Hospital, said the condition of the children brought for treatment was alarming. "Some were brought dead. Others were in critical condition and died during treatment. Most deaths were linked to severe anaemia," he said.
Medical experts indicated that several children were already severely malnourished and medically fragile.
Sudhir Bhai Goyal, director of Sewadham Ashram, said many of the children sent from Indore were severely disabled, unable to walk or stand, and suffered from breathing issues, seizures, and complications arising from blood deficiency and prolonged immobility.
He added that the ashram currently houses around 250 destitute and disabled children and claimed that more than 50 of them are in extremely critical condition. The ashram has been shut down.
