Alappuzha: A former employee at Snehadhara rehabilitation centre at Peralassery, where Kerala State Human Rights Commission found grave human rights violations, says several inmates had died during the last couple of years.
T. S. Babu, rescued by district social justice officer from here in April last year, is now at the Government old age home at Mayithara.
He joined Snehadhara as a driver in 2010 after his wife succumbed to cancer.
He was one of the three employees entrusted with 262 inmates, including 52 women.
He says that he turned against its management after several instances of callousness. Naturopath Jacob Vadakkanchery, whom the police arrested last year for spreading canards about vaccines, were treating them.
He recalled the death of C. Thankachan, 58, who was brought to the home by a brother of Snehadhara secretary P.S. Abraham in 2017. He had a festering wound, with puss oozing.
"I told Mr Thankachan's relatives to take him to a hospital as Snehadhara had no doctors. But Mr Abraham admitted him," he told DC.
"The condition of the wound on the leg worsened, and he fell after a few days, flesh hanging from the wound. Mr Abraham tried to manage it himself. That evening Mr Thankachan died. There was no probe into the cause of death."
Mr Babu said the incident shook his conscience that he immediately asked to be relieved. But Mr Abraham did not pay pending salaries, forcing him to stay on.
Since then, there had been several mysterious deaths. He petitioned chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan on April 8 last year about the ill-treatment after shifting of 52 inmates to Mount Zion Medical College Hospital, Ezhamkulam on January 6, 2017.
Inmates were transported in small ambulances and left there for two-and-a-half-months in the name of a medical camp. When they returned, all of them were weak. The Chengannur police never probed his petition about human trafficking. In 2017 and 2018, three cases of hanging and drowning occurred inside. Police never took them seriously.
"This was what prompted me to approach official agencies, including KSHRC, the chief secretary and the district collector. The management threatened to finish me off. I told C.J Jobin, a resident, about the threat, when he contacted district social justice officer, who took me to Mayithara home on April 14 last year," he said.
Report submitted by the district social justice officer to KSHRC in 2016 (available with DC) says the home lacked registration under Section 10 of Kerala Registration of Psychosocial Rehabilitation Centres of Mentally Ill Persons Rules 2012.
"The centre has not followed the procedures of during the admission and discharge of inmates. It has also failed to fulfil the procedure of post-death procedures of people at home. No officials have been reported about death, or missing cases happened at the centre," it says.
Realising negligence, the district collector ordered district social justice officer in March 2018 to shift Krishnan, an inmate, to Medical College Hospital, Vandanam. He was found battling with life without medical assistance. He died at the hospital within a few days.
