FAMILY WHOSE DAUGHTERS STARVED RAN TEA STALL BEFORE FALLING ON HARD TIMES

NEW DELHI: The family of Mangal Singh, whose three daughters died of starvation in east Delhi’s Mandawali on Tuesday, had seen “better days” before falling on hard times due to a combination of factors, according to neighbours from the by-lane where he lived until last week .

For several years, Singh ran a tea stall in lane number 2 of Mandawali’s Saket Block that did brisk business, with rickshaw pullers in the neighbourhood forming the bulk of his regular clientele. Neighbours, including photo studio manager Harichand Gola, said they remember Singh’s stall bustling daily from at least 2012 till about two years ago.

“Back in 2012, it was at his shop where we used to spend our mornings and evenings after work. Mangal was a hardworking man. He loved his daughters ,” Gola said. His wife, Beena, was confined to the house for the most part and did not have much interaction with people in the neighbourhood, he added. Police have suggested over the last week that she may have been suffering from a disability. The children, Mansi, Shikha and Parul, are well remembered in the neighbourhood.

Gola recalled a day, about two

years ago, when Singh came into the studio to get a family picture clicked with his wife and all three daughters. “If a man who runs a tea stall gets a family picture clicked in a studio, it means he loved them. It was an extra expense for him,” he said.

The bodies of the three girls — 8, 4 and 2 years old — were found in Talab Chowk, where the family had moved last Saturday after being evicted from their Saket Block home. Police and medical reports have said that the girls

died of starvation, a finding that has sent shockwaves through the Delhi government and civic administration. But a preliminary report by an independent magistrate on Friday suggested that the children were given an “unknown medicine” by their father a day before they died. The report, submitted by the district magistrate of Shahdara, K Mahesh, to deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia, stated that the girls were suffering from “loose motions and vomiting.”

CHIEF JUSTICE OF INDIA ALSO HIGHLIGHTED THE NEED FOR THE EXECUTIVE TO COOPERATE WITH JUDICIARY IN SERVING SUMMONS AND NOTICES BECAUSE OF WHICH A VERY LARGE NUMBER OF CASES ARE PENDING.