Horror stories of rape and torture have leaked out of a shelter home in Tamil Nadu’s Villupuram, from where over 100 inmates have been rescued so far.
The tales of torture at Anbu Jothi Ashram in Villupuram came to fore after a US resident Salim Khan moved the Madras high court to get the authorities to act on his complaint that his father-in-law Jawahirullah was missing from the private shelter home where he was admitted to in December 2021, a Times of India report said.
A team of officials then followed up on the matter only to find out that the shelter home, reportedly running without a licence for the past 17 years, was a shocker where inmates have been getting raped and tortured allegedly by the owner and staff.
Villupuram district collector C Palani said the administration has initiated efforts to permanently seal the ashram. Villupuram SP N Shreenatha said police had booked eight people under various sections including 376 (punishment for rape) of the Indian penal code and section 4 of the Tamil Nadu Prohibition of Harassment of Woman Act, 1998.
While four of the eight have been arrested, two are absconding, the owner and his wife are in hospital, the report said, adding that the shelter home did not have proper records about the inmates or of shifting them to other homes in Tamil Nadu and other states.
Villupuram SP said a police team visited a home in Bengaluru where 15 inmates were sent. The Bengaluru home has records of receiving 15 people from the Villupuram home. The Bengaluru home claimed that the 15 inmates broke open the window and escaped from the Villupuram facility.
Owners of the Anbu Jothi Ashram B Jubin, who is admitted to Mundiyampakkam government medical college hospital, rubbished the charges.
“We have been running the home for the past 17 years. We admit mentally ill people wandering on the streets. Relatives of mentally ill people also admit them in our home. There was no complaint all these years and now we are accused of rape and torturing inmates. It is unfortunate that we face such charges,” TOI quoted Jubin as saying.
Police said Jubin and his wife Mariya would be arrested once they are discharged from hospital. The couple were reportedly injured by two feral monkeys they kept in a cage and used to intimidate the ashram inmates. Jubin had released them when he found officials at the ashram gates and the monkeys attacked him and his wife.
Survivor Tells Shocking Tales
A survivor, who came as a teenager from Odisha through a ‘rescue’ group that took her to Anbu Jothi Ashram, said she was repeatedly raped, beaten up and threatened.
“When she tried to resist, the employees set on them two ferocious monkeys the owner kept in a cage,” the report quoted R Lalitha, a volunteer with Social Awareness Society for Youth, as saying. The group is looking after the survivors now.
According to the survivor, several women were chained to window grilles, drugged using sleeping pills and raped, adding that those any bid to resist were dealt with beatings of iron rods and attacks by the monkeys.
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