“Please give me some food”, a desperate plea from a starving 17 year old Sarat, an inmate of Jatiya Jaradhi Sansad, an orphanage for the mentally challenged in Baruipur in South 24 Parganas district of West Bengal, but no one was there to hear his plea and he died, as per the Doctors of the Bariupur Sub-Divisional Hospital he died due to cardio respiratory failure caused by “Chronic Malnutrition and Acute Gastroenteritis”. Sarat did not had a grain of food in his stomach when he died.

As per the report there are 31 other mentally challenged children aged between 8 and 17 who are living in unhygienic conditions with little food or clothes. The stench is horrible. Any visitor to this orphanage is greeted by these children only with a desperate hope that may be now they will get something to eat. They have not had their fill since several years.

One of the children Alu with saliva dripping from his mouth and skin infection all over his body was pleading for food. He was the one who tried to escape but was caught and beaten up. Another child Raju just sat in a corner too weak to even get up. He just started crying.

For 31 children there were only five-six pieces of nutrilla in the bucketful of hot water. The inmates get a handful of puffed rice and jaggery for breakfast and very poor quality and quantity of rice and hot water mixed with some turmeric is given for lunch and dinner is again some rice and jaggery.

As per Abhijit Kumar Haldar, an employee only 25 rupees are given for vegetables to be served to all children. The Main culprit is Tripti Mishra, the owner of the house as per the employees. They have not got their salaries nor enough money to run the orphanage properly, this is the situation when State Government is giving funds regularly, about Rs 30,000/- per month. The Central Government used to give an annual grant of Rs.2.76 lakhs and State Government anothe 3.5 lakhs but the grant of central Government stopped when it was found that that the home was not following the norms required to get Central Grant.

The Homoepathy Doctor Srikumar Banerjee who treats the children claimed hat the owner also got foreign funds but she does not spend money for the purpose the donation is given for. It seems that it was after the death of Sarat the local residents got into action informing the police and also manhandling Nirapada Pailla, the superintendent of the Home.

The Politicians and the Governmental agencies woke up and Abdul Gani the Sub Divisional Officer and local CPM MLA Rahul Ghosh rushed to the spot assuring that proper action will be taken against the culprits. Biswanth Chowdhary, the social welfare Minister said they were looking into the matter.

Now a final Word from Tripti Mishra the owner of the Home and the person being blamed for the atrocious state of affairs. She put the entire blame on the seven orphanage employees, saying that she gave enough funds but the employees did not take any interest in taking care of the children.

The appropriate punishment for the guilty would be to force him or her to stay in the same deplorable conditions in which the children are being kept till death.