Mumbai: Almost three years after the case of 19 special children being starved, tortured and sexually abused at an orphanage in Kavdas first came to light, the Sessions court on Thursday convicted six accused and acquitted two in the case. It's been a long battle to get justice for these children with case falling apart in the initial stages.
The Principal Sessions Judge Shalini Phansalkar-Joshi sentenced the orphanage's owner Pundlik Gole to life imprisonment. He and six others were convicted. The charges ranged from rape, sodomy, attempt to murder, torture, neglect to culpable homicide.
Gole's wife Sakshi was also sentenced to seven years in jail. The judge stated that no leniency should be shown to the accused.
The sad state of the children was first exposed in August 2010 by the tabloid Mumbai Mirror. The Child Welfare Committee then sent the children to other shelters. However, Shahpur police conducted a very shoddy probe of the case. They booked Gole but submitted a weak charge sheet. The probe was then handed over to Assistant Commissioner of Police Rashmi Karandikar.
A fresh charge sheet was then submitted and nine people were charged.
When the case came up for hearing at the sessions court in November 2012, the judge added the charge of murder to the remaining charges against the accused.
On Thursday, Gole, his wife Sakshi, teachers Salim Syed and Sikandar Pinjari, and care-takers Jitendra Chavan and Ramkrishna Bagul were arrested. Harshada Nichite and Sonal Shirke were let off. The court observed, "it is a situation where no reason is made out for liniency...Gole betrayed the trust and faith of the very children for whom he was to be the guardian and parent." While the initial investigation was botched up, special prosecutor Vijay Bagade says the testimony of the four children with mental disabilities, who despite the trauma, came forward and testified was the main evidence in this case. "It was the bravery that helped us prove the case," he added.
Many would argue that had the investigations been left to the local Shahpur police there wouldn't have been a conviction. The meticulous work done by DCP Karandikar was clearly visible in the charge sheet presented by her team in the court. "Undoubtedly this was a challenging case. as it involved mentally and physically challenged children. We had to take the help of psychiatrists to help the children open up. What added to the task was that these children were rehabilitated and they moved on. They did not want to remember the horrific time they had in the past," said Karandikar.
This conviction, many would hope, will deter owners of orhanage home from committing a heinous crime. Even after the Kavdas Ashram case, several orphanage homes in Panvel and Chembur have reported similar incidents.
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