Disabled Indian boy, 9, tied by his leg to bus stop on scorching summer’s day

Disabled Indian boy, 9, tied by his leg to bus stop on scorching summer’s day

Mangalore Today News Network

Mumbai, May 26, 2014:  The nine-year-old boy dressed in blue lay listlessly on the pavement in the scorching Mumbai summer afternoon, his ankle tethered with rope to a bus stop, unheeded by pedestrians strolling past.

Lakhan Kale cannot hear or speak and suffers from cerebral palsy and epilepsy, so his grandmother and carer tied him up to keep him safe while she went to work, selling toys and flower garlands on the city’s roadsides.

‘What else can I do? He can’t talk, so how will he tell anyone if he gets lost?’ said homeless Sakhubai Kale, 66, who raised Lakhan on the street by the bus stop shaded by the hanging roots of a banyan tree.

Left alone: Nine-year-old Indian boy Lakhan Kale is tied with a cloth rope around his ankle, to a bus-stop pole in Mumbai. He cannot hear or speak and suffers from cerebral palsy and epilepsy

 

Tied up: A photograph of him tied up appeared in a local newspaper this week, sparking concerns among charities and the police, and he has since been taken into care at a government-run institution

 

On the street: The boy’s ankle is tethered with rope to a bus stop, unheeded by pedestrians strolling past

Lakhan’s father died several years ago and his mother walked out on the family, his grandmother said.

A photograph of him tied up appeared in a local newspaper last week, sparking concerns among charities and the police, and he has since been taken into care at a government-run institution.

But activists say his plight on the streets comes as little surprise in India, where those with disabilities face daily stigma and discrimination and a lack of facilities to assist them.

Ms Kale said Lakhan ‘tends to wander off’ and that there was no one else to stop him walking into traffic while she and her 12-year-old granddaughter, Rekha, were out making a living.

At night she would tie him to her own leg as they slept on the pavement so she would know if he tried to walk away.


Homeless: Lakhan’s grandmother and carer Sakhubai Kale, 66, tied him up to keep him safe while she went to work, selling toys and flower garlands on the city’s roadside

 

Family: Lakhan’s father died several years ago and his mother walked out on the family, his grandmother said

I am a single old woman. Nobody paid attention to me until the newspaper report,’ she said. ‘He was in a special school, but they sent him back.’

Social worker Meena Mutha has since managed to place Lakhan in a state-run south Mumbai home, which takes in a range of needy children from the disabled to the destitute.


‘Residental homes are very, very few. There’s a major need for the government to do something, a social responsibility to provide residential centres for children like Lakhan,’ said Ms Mutha, a trustee at the Manav Foundation helping people with mental illness.

She said government-run centres that put together children with different needs did not always have the range of facilities required.

‘They don’t have the infrastructure, the staff,’ said Ms Mutha. Conversely, non-government organisations ‘have expertise, but not the space,’ she said, highlighting the squeeze on land in the densely-packed city.

No surprise in India: Activists say his plight on the streets comes as little shock in the country, where those with disabilities face daily stigma and discrimination and a lack of facilities to assist them

No longer on the streets: Lakhan has now been placed in a state-run south Mumbai home, which takes in a range of needy children from the disabled to the destitute


Across India, the 40 to 60 million people with disabilities often face similar struggles to get the help they need, activists say.

’There’s a major need for the government to do something, a social responsibility to provide residential centres for children like Lakhan’

Meena Mutha, social worker

‘There’s no collective responsibility. You have a disabled child, you look after it,’ said Varsha Hooja, chief executive at Adapt, another charity working with disabled young adults and children.

Ms Hooja said she had seen other cases of parents locking up children with disabilities while they go to work. ‘The state gives no support,’ she said.

A long-awaited bill was introduced into the Indian parliament in February aiming to give disabled people equal rights - including access to education, employment and legal redress against discrimination - but it has yet to be passed.

Lawyer Rajive Raturi was on the committee that began drafting the bill five years ago, and said the Congress party-led government which has just lost power had pushed through a ‘complete dilution’ of the original, especially on sections regarding women and children with disabilities.