A legal notice has been served on the government, asking for the formation of an inquiry committee within three days to probe the violation of fundamental rights of children at three child development centres of the country.
The legal notice also asked the recipients to identify the unscrupulous officials of the centres responsible for the violation of the fundamental rights of the children and take appropriate action against them.
Supreme Court lawyer Manoj Kumar Bhowmick, who is also a rights activist, served the legal notice on the social welfare secretary and director general of the Department of Social Service on Thursday.
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The legal notice was served against the backdrop of a report published in a national English daily on September 29, entitled “No better than a jail”, about the violation of children’s fundamental rights at the child development centres.
The report described some incidents involving the torture of the children by staff and senior inmates.
It also mentioned that the capacity of the Tongi centre was 300 but at present it has 545 inmates. There is one psychiatric case worker and one social case worker to provide counselling services for the inmates. The Jessore centre houses around 300 boys against its capacity of 150.
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One inmate, who has been living at the Tongi centre for the last four months, said: “Our senior inmates were our leaders and we had to obey them without question. The slightest mistake, for example, failing to greet them would result in punishments like 100-200 sit-ups or standing on one leg for an hour,” according to the report.
Only 71 out of 545 male inmates in Tongi and 22 out of 80 female inmates are currently studying in various courses, the report said.
Recently, three inmates were killed at the Jessore child development centre. Later, the law enforcement agency found the involvement of staff in the criminal offence.
