Battered 2- year- old Falak may have been kidnapped
New Delhi: A two- year- old battered girl, possibly hit against a wall, abandoned in a hospital with critical injuries by a teenager, was on Friday struggling for her existence. Doctors said her condition has ‘slightly improved’and she has been taken off the ventilator. But that has brightened her chances of survival only marginally.
Even as efforts were on to ferret out the man who allegedly sexually abused the teenaged girl, who got the baby admitted at AIIMS, two women surfaced at the hospital claiming to be relatives.
The teen has been placed in a juvenile home, and has been interviewed at length by members of the Child Welfare Committee. She reportedly told them that a man she eloped with last year had sexually abused her. But how or why the child was with her remains a mystery.
According to a TV channel, the girl had received the child from this man with whom she was having an affair. He had received the child from a friend of his, Manoj, who, in turn, took custody of the toddler from an acquaintance, Munni.
Police sources said it appeared that the child was kidnapped and had exchanged hands several times before it reached the teenager.
The teenager has been sent to a juvenile home. She admitted on Thursday that she had thrashed the child in a fit of rage. Doctors said sexual abuse might have traumatized the teen into battering the baby she was looking after. The toddler, Falak ( meaning alt145 the skyalt39) was hospitalized with severe bruises, head injuries and broken limbs on January 18. She had bite marks all over her body and her cheeks branded with hot iron.
The child is undergoing treatment at the Trauma Centre and has suffered two cardiac arrests in the past few days. ‘We see bad cases on a daily basis. But I have never seen this kind,’said Dr Sumit Sinha.
Two women, meanwhile, approached the hospital claiming the child was related to them.’I have directed both the women to police,alt39alt39a neurosurgeon at AIIMS, said. However, the police said nobody had approached them.
The child was taken off the ventilator, is moving her limbs, and her physical condition on Friday was better than it was the previous day. Her neurological condition has also improved.
She is being fed through a pipe that goes via the nose. Doctors said that the teenaged girl, who claimed to be the toddlers mother, brought her to the hospital. She had blamed the broken limbs on a fall from the bed.
‘Her chances of survival still remain fifty- fifty. If she survives, she will be dependent for the rest of her life because her brain has suffered permanent damage,’a doctor said.
The teenaged girl had run away from her house last year claiming that she could not stand the physical abuse at home by her father. She had eloped with a 22- year- old married man, possibly a taxi driver from Mumbai.
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