A sordid tale of apathy, negligence
GORAKHPUR: When the officials of the district administration raided an old age home here, they found weak elderly people in tattered clothes living under unhygienic conditions.
The old age home was one of the shelter homes being illegally operated by Deoria women’s shelter home manager Girija Tripathi, her husband Mohan Tripathi and daughters Kanak Lata Tripathi and Kanchan Lata Tripathi.
The team that raided the old age home on Tuesday was led by Gorakhpur DM Vijyendra Pandian and SSP Shalabh Mathur.
The police arrested five people, including Kanak Lata Tripathi, a cook and a manager.
The officials recovered a 21-year-old differently-abled woman who was missing from Ma aV ind hy a va si ni shelter home in Deoria.
“This place is like a living hell,” murmured a 60-year-old woman rescued by the officials.
“We were not even fed properly and left to starve with no food whenever the cook would be on leave. Urine and stool passed on bed by ill inmates of the old age home was not cleaned and foul smell filled the rooms,” an inmate, who did not wish to be named, said.
A local resident said nobody visited the old age home to meet the inmates and Grija Tripathi sometimes came to see them.
In Deoria old age house, a 70-year-old inmate Saroj, hailing from Muzaffarnagar, said three girls used to stay with her and added that she even shared bed with them but denied that any sexual harassment took place with them.
After the Gorakhpur old age home was sealed, the elderly women, aged between 60 and 80 years, were taken to district hospital for a health check up. The 21-year-old rescued woman was sent for medical examination.
“No injuries marks were found on the bodies of women. Due to old age, most of them were suffering from dementia, an age related complexity in which person starts forgetting things at short intervals. Their blood pressure and pulse rate are normal,” chief medical officer SK Tiwari said.
When asked about the 21-yearold women rescued from Gorakhpur, the CMO said her medical examination was conducted at the women’s district hospital by district probation officer but added that he did not have any information about the reports.
An official said pictures of Girija Tripathi with senior administrative and police officials were put up on the walls of old age houses in Rajla Bhatauli in Deoria and Ranideeha in Gorakhpur to impress visitors.
The DM said the old age home inmates were being shifted to a government-run old age house in Bargadwa.