Torture at Villupuram ashram for mentally ill | CBCID to investigate allegations; more complaints pour in of missing patients

The CBCID is now looking into allegations of rape, assault and torture at the Anbu Jothi Ashram in Villupuram; efforts are on to trace patients who went missing after being sent to Bengaluru; the National Commission for Women too, has begun an inquiry

Tamil Nadu Director-General of Police C. Sylendra Babu has ordered a probe by the Crime Branch CID into allegations of torture and sexual harassment of residents at the Anbu Jothi Ashram, Villupuram district.

According to police sources, the CBCID will also investigate complains that many residents of the ashram, who were shifted to a home in Bengaluru, have gone missing. The local police have arrested the ashram owner Jubin Baby (45), his wife Maria (43) of Kerala and their associates on charges of rape and assault, among others.

The ashram, registered under the Nalla Samariyar Charitable Trust, has been functioning without a licence as a home for persons with mental illnesses and retardation, destitute women, beggars and alcohol addicts, at Kundalapuliyur village in Villupuram district since 2005, the sources said.

Sources said that more people were turning up with complaints that their family members, admitted to the ashram over the past two years, are missing. The allegation is that after a few months of “treatment”, the ashram used to send batches of its residents, including women, to homes in Karnataka and Rajasthan.

A batch of 15 residents sent to the New ARK Mission of India, Bengaluru, allegedly escaped by breaking open the window panes of a bathroom, and their whereabouts are not known. Investigators have written to the Bengaluru city police to probe the circumstances under which these residents escaped, the sources said.

Meanwhile, the Tamil Nadu Forest Department has seized the two monkeys used to scare and attack residents at the ashram and has invoked provisions of the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972, against Jubin Baby.

After receiving information that the ashram owner used monkeys to scare and attack residents who refused to cooperate, a Forest team arrived at the scene a couple of days ago.