Dubai: A Bahrain-based Indian school has left the parents of an Indian girl "devastated" after calling them up to clear outstanding fees of their eight-year-old daughter, who had died in January.

Shiny Philip, the mother, received a call from Indian School Bahrain (ISB) last week about outstanding tuition fees for her daughter Abiya Shreya Jophy despite having informed the school of her death and clarifying that she was not enrolled at the start of term in April.

Shiny, who is recovering from the loss of her only daughter, has fallen into a state of depression once again following the school's phone calls, her husband Jophy Cherian told Gulf Daily News.


"It is unfortunate that the staff members at the school were so insensitive towards a mother's feelings," Jophy, who was also called up Monday for the same demand, said.

"When they called her 10 days ago on our landline, she told them that we lost Abiya and requested them to remove her name from the records. She has been very upset ever since and she has been devastated, trying to cope with the loss with much difficulty," he said.

ISB later apologised to grieving parents of Abiya, who died from chickenpox in January.

The school's chairman Prince Natarajan said an investigation has been launched into the "administrative error".

"We share the sentiments of the parents and we apologise," he said.

Cherian and his wife are from Kerala and have been living in Bahrain for the last 27 years.

Mumbai: The Tilak Nagar police arrested a 40-year-old tailor on Sunday for raping his 16-year-old daughter for a year. He had threatened to kill the girl if she spoke about the rape and the abuse may have remained under wraps had the family’s landlord not noticed that the girl was pregnant and alerted a social worker.

Cops said that the girl, who is seven months pregnant, lived with her father and two brothers in the hutments of the Tilak Nagar area. Her mother had separated from the accused in the month of January. “The accused has eight children in all, from two wives.

He had got a divorce from one of the wives earlier and following the separation from the other wife, he took the custody of three children while the rest remained with her. Just before her mother left the home, the girl informed her about bleeding from her private parts, but the mother did not realise that she was raped,” said a police officer from Tilak Nagar police station.

“The accused had threatened to kill the girl if she spoke about the abuse. The landlord, who had sensed something wrong was going on, had been urging them to leave her house and shift somewhere else. When she noticed the girl was pregnant, however, the landlord contacted a social worker and the tailor’s abuse of his daughter came to light,” he added.
‘Dead husband’
According to police officials, the 16-year-old was so scared and traumatised that she even told the social worker that nothing was wrong. Only after some time did she open up and reveal that her father had got her pregnant.

“Investigations also revealed that the accused had taken her to Rajawadi hospital in May to check on her pregnancy, claiming that she was an adult and her husband had died. After the reports revealed she was pregnant, she was taken home and ordered to keep quiet. Since then, the victim stayed at home and did household chores,” added an officer.

Nabbed

On Sunday, the social worker alerted the police, following which a case was registered and the accused was nabbed. The 40-year-old has been booked under Sections 376 (2) (Taking advantage of official position and committing rape on a woman in his custody) and 506 (Criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code along with Sections 4, 6, 8 and 12 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012. He was produced in court yesterday and has been remanded in police custody.

Kolkata: An aged woman was found living with the corpse of her 24-year-old daughter apparently for some time in Howrah. The incident came to light on Monday morning at a village in Domjur.

Alerted by a stench emanating from the house of the Pramaniks, their neighbours informed the police, which broke open the door of the one-storeyed house and found the elderly woman Annapurna, a retired primary school teacher, sleeping on the floor with the body of her daughter Tanima on the bed.

The 67-year-old widow however claimed that she did not know when her daughter, a patient of epilepsy, had died. The body was sent for post-mortem. According to the local residents, the two members of the family were hardly seen going out and interacting in public.

The police however suspects that Tanima might have died in the last 24 hours and her mother to be a psychiatric patient. Superintendent of Police (Howrah Rural) Sukesh Kumar Jain later said, “The body was not decomposed. But signs of rigor mortis were found in it. It appears that the young woman died either on Sunday night or early on Monday.”

He added, “But the time and cause of the death could be known after the post-mortem. There was no foul play in the incident as the door was locked from inside. The aged woman’s son who lives in the vicinity was called in while breaking into the house.”

West Bengal: An alcoholic mother was beaten by a mob in India after she was caught slicing off and eating her two-year-old daughter's scalp.

Toddler Bharati Mondal was rescued by her uncle Dablu after he heard her screams in Gopalpur, West Bengal.

He was horrified to find sister-in-law Pramila, 40, cutting the toddler's head and eating her flesh.

He snatched away the terrified tot and rushed her to a local hospital where she was treated for her injuries at a critical care unit. 

'It was around noon and I was resting at home when I heard loud cries of Bharati,' said Dablu Mondal, 41.

'I ran to check on her but there the scene I saw was beyond shocking.

'Bharati was bleeding profusely as Pramila was eating the flesh of her head. I immediately snatched away Bharati from Pramila and rushed her to Malda Medical College and Hospital where she is admitted to ICU.' 

As the news of the grisly attack spread, angry locals gathered at her house before tying up Mondal with ropes and beating her. 

The mother-of-three, who has an alcohol problem, confessed to the mob but was unable to explain her actions.

She was only saved when sister-in-law  Mamta Mandal, 36, called the police who dispersed the angry mob.

Police inspector Kishna Das said Dablu Mondal, who lived next door to Pramila, was alerted by the child's screams on Wednesday.

'He there saw Pramila eating the flesh of Bharati's head. Soon villagers learnt about the incident and reached Pramila's house and started beating her in anger. 

'We rescued the woman and sent her to hospital.' 

Bharati is being cared for by doctors at the Malda Medical College and Hospital while arrangements are made to transfer her to a better equipped hospital in Kolkata. 

Pramila's husband Habu Mondal, went to Delhi to work to work as a laborer last year but has not been seen since. The couple have two other children Parbati, eight, and son Swarna, two.

Police have prepared a case against Pramila who is expected to appear in court soon, police said.   

 

Sulya: In a heinous act, the father assaulted daughter his own daughter sexually has been arrested by the cops on Sunday in Enmur.

The resident of Enmur is the accused of sexually exploiting his own daughter. His daughter is studying in high school. He also thrashed his wife for raising question on his act. The cops have arrested him on a complaint by wife of the accused.

Patna: In a bizarre incident, a father, Kanhaiya Yadav, robbed a bank in Bhagalpur because he could not arrange the dowry amount for his younger daughter’s wedding on time.

Dowry in Bihar is a common social evil where the bride’s family has to pay in cash or kind before the auspicious wedding takes place.

Though the dowry amount to be given to his daughter’s would-be father-in-law Rudal Yadav was Rs 4.8 lakh, the bride side looted Rs 49 lakh from Bihar Gramin Bank in Bhagalpur, some 250 kms from the state capital.

A first-of-its-kind robbery took the Bihar police by surprise. When the Zonal IG Bachchu Singh Meena, Bhagalpur Senior SP (SSP) Vivek Kumar and other police officials reached the incident site, they found a bike which was used in the crime but left abandoned by miscreants after it punctured.

Thereafter, a special police team was constituted to crack the case, which was also being personally monitored by Bihar DGP PK Thakur. The recovery of bike helped the police in apprehending Sattan Yadav, an auto driver, whose vehicle was used in the bank robbery. More raids followed. Sattan confessed before the police that the entire robbery plan was hatched by Kanhaiya, as he had failed to arrange money for his daughter’s marriage.

“Altogether seven persons, including Kanhaiya’s eldest son-in-law Mithilesh, were involved in the crime. We have arrested four, including Mithilesh, and recovered Rs 6 lakh out of the total looted amount. Of this, Rs 3.97 lakh was stashed in the refrigerator of Kanhaiya’s eldest daughter Ruchi Devi,” said the Bhagalpur SSP.

Further raids are on to nab the main culprit Kanhaiya and his other absconding accomplices.

Bengaluru: Meghana, the nine-year-old daughter of techie Prabha was on cloud nine when her father told her that she would be flying with him to Sydney to meet her mother after her annual examinations in March. But sadly that day never came.

 

Prabha was stabbed to death in Sydney on March 7, while she was on her way to home from job.

Meghana had spent time with her mother who had stayed in Bengaluru for two months in 2014. The kid always missed Prabha and was yearning to be with her. Meghana’s father Arun Kumar had thus decided to take Meghana to Sydney to spend two weeks with her in the last week of March. The child was thrilled and was making preparations to leave for Australia, her family members said.

But it was a difficult situation for the family members to break the news of Prabha’s death to Meghana, just a few hours before the body arrived in the City late Saturday night.

“The girl was confused in her reaction after learning that her mother was no more. None in the family knew how to console her and manage the situation.  We don’t know how Meghana can cope with the loss,” added the relative.

Tears rolled down cheeks of every one when Meghana stood by her mother’s body in full silence. The kid stood there looking closely at her mother’s body without talking to anybody. Many were seen weeping when Meghana lit the incense sticks offered by her father which marked the beginning of Prabha’s journey from Chandra Layout residence to eternal world.

Keeping Meghana in the dark about her mother’s death was a challenge for the family members. However, she realised something bad had happened considering the sudden change in the atmosphere in the house. Nobody in the house gave her a convincing reply on why Arun Kumar left Bengaluru in a hurry, added the family members. The family elders approached Meghana with much difficulty to inform her about the tragedy only hours before the arrival of the body. 

Bengaluru: All that this poor farming family from Doddaballapur taluk has is one acre of land which fetches them just Rs. 11,000 a year.

But, they have a ‘golden daughter’. Geetha N., daughter of Narasimha Murthy and Chikkathayamma, graduated with a record number of 13 gold medals at the convocation of the University of Agricultural Sciences-Bangalore here on Saturday.

“My parents were not in a position to bear my educational expenses when I got a seat for an agricultural course. So I took an educational loan to support my studies,” says Geetha, who is now pursuing her post-graduate studies in Agricultural Genetics and Plant Breeding with a fellowship from the Indian Council of Agricultural Research.

Excitedly showing her parents the box of gold medals, Geetha said, “Though my parents did not have money, they did everything for me to excel in studies and I owe my success to them.”

Having experienced the difficulties of a marginal farming family, her dream is to become a researcher in the field of genetics and plant breeding in a bid to do something good for farmers in distress. “I am pained to see farmers in distress, especially owing to crash in prices. I want to do something for them,” she said.

Geetha also has plans to set up a non-governmental organisation to help farmers. “Please do not quit farming as that is our backbone,” is her plea to youth who quit agriculture to move to cities in search of menial jobs. Similarly, A.P.-based Kundur Bharath, who graduated with seven gold medals, also hails from a farming family. He too wants to serve the farming community by becoming a researcher.