A female programme manager of a specialized adoption agency in Kanker town of Chhattisgarh has been arrested after a video of her beating up two little girls at the centre went viral recently.
The adoption agency, approved and funded by the Department of Women and Child Development (DWCD) of Chhattisgarh government under the child protection scheme, was run by an NGO.
The Kanker police have registered a case under the relevant sections of Juvenile Justice Act and the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, against the programme manager, Seema Dwivedi.
The viral video showed Dwivedi slapping a girl child hard, yanking her up by her hair and then throwing her hard on the ground. The accused then picks her up and throws her violently on the bed. She then proceeds to call another child standing nearby and slap her repeatedly.
On Monday, Kanker District Collector Priyanka Shukla suspended the NGO Pratigya Vikas Sansthan which ran the adoption at Shivnagar of Kanker town. The district administration has taken over the functioning of the agency. Shukla has said that due legal action will be taken against the NGO.
The collector also suspended erstwhile district programme officer (DPO) of DWCD Chandrashekhar Mishra, who allegedly did not take an action despite being informed about the abuse of kids and other irregularities at the agency, a government note said. A show-cause notice has been served to district child protection officer Seema Laria.
The action came after a team of the Directorate of Women and Child Development, Raipur, conducted a sudden inspection of the adoption agency and submitted a report to the collector mentioning that the allegations of the ‘torture’ of the children were true, an order by the district collector on Monday, said.
The video of the kids being beaten up by Dwivedi is from December 2022, but went viral recently and was brought to the notice of the district collector as well as state Home Minister Tamradhwaj Sahu, sources said. The matter was allegedly brought to the notice of the then DPO Mishra, but no action was taken. Mishra is also facing allegations that he took bribes from Dwivedi to hush the matter up.
There are also allegations that a male friend of Dwivedi visited the adoption centre late in the night and the CCTV cameras were switched off at that time. Employees who dared to question the irregularities or object to the abuse of kids were terminated from jobs. At least eight employees were terminated during the last one year, sources said.
In the viral video, two female employees are seen passing repeatedly the room where Dwivedi is beating up the kids, but they do not intervene.
