CHANDIGARH – When the inmates at Rohtak shelter home were given a white powder, they had no way of knowing that it was not tooth powder. It was only when they were forced into sexual encounters at a guest house near the Rohtak bus stand did they realise that the white dust was not what they thought it was.
This and many more startling facts about abuse by policemen, torture and exploitation of minors in Rohtak’s shelter home have come out in a damning report submitted to the Punjab and Haryana High Court this morning.
The victims were abused by cops, outsiders, and others; were told to garland the men they went out with; and made to undergo abortions by “inserting foreign objects in private parts”.
On Holi, colour was put on their private parts; and their children were sold off in the garb of abortion. The victims were kept naked for “long periods” and photographed. They were even forced to perform yoga – naked. Some “elderly girls” were taken away at night for dancing and immoral purposes. Children as young as five complained of “perverse sexual abuse in form of oral sex”.
The victims were even taken to temples and forced to commit thefts. Heads were shaved for the “wrongs committed by them”. The medical report of one victim suggested she was HIV-infected.
The damning report, submitted by two members of a commission appointed by the high court, is based on the interviews of 101 inmates – now putting up in different centres.
For the purpose, the commission visited 12 centres. A probe by the CBI or any other independent agency has now been recommended by the two members.
