Chhattisgarh woman arrested for thrashing girls at adoption centre

The Chhattisgarh police on Monday arrested a woman for brutally thrashing two girls at a private adoption centre in Kanker district after a CCTV video of the incident went viral on social media, officials said.

The Kanker district administration has suspended the licence of the NGO that runs the adoption centre, following the incident. The district programme officer of the state Woman and Child Development (WCD) department was also suspended for negligence, officials said.

“Seema Dwivedi, superintendent of Visheshkrit Dattak Grahan Agency (Specialised Adoption Agency), run by Pratigya Vikas Sanstha, was seen thrashing the children in the video,” said director WCD, Divya Umesh Mishra. HT can’t verify the authenticity of the video.

Mishra said that a complaint was submitted by the district administration on Saturday and an inspection was carried out on Sunday.

As per the inspection report, seen by HT, Dwivedi admitted that the video clip belonged to the same centre and it happened around a year ago.

“Dwivedi said in her statement that she thrashed the two girls of the facility as her mental status was not sound then. She also said that despite repeated warnings, one of the girls used to accept chocolates from unidentified persons while returning from Anganwadi centre. Dwivedi said she had apologised for her act and since then such an incident has never been repeated by her,” the report said.

To be sure, a confession or disclosure statement of any person made before a police officer is not admissible as evidence before a court unless it is backed by other evidence. Only a confession before a judge is admissible as evidence against an accused.