Top cop questions ritual over ‘torture’ of children
Kerala: Three days ahead of the annual Attukal Pongala festival in Thiruvananthapuram, a senior IPS official has strongly criticised a ritual held as part of the festival over “rigorous mental and physical abuse” of children who take part in it.
Director General of Prisons and Correctional Services R Sreelekha, has, in her blog, highlighted the violation of child rights involved in the kuthiyottam ritual at the Attukal Bhagavathy Temple here.
According to registration procedures followed by the temple trust, boys aged between six and 12 years are enrolled for the ritual, which has been a festival feature for decades.
For seven days, the boys, who represent the wounded soldiers of Goddess Mahishasura Mardini, stay in the temple, sleep on the floor and follow stringent diet restrictions.
In a blog post titled ‘Time to stop this yearly crime in the name of faith’, Sreelekha – Kerala’s first woman DGP – details the boys’ ordeal that culminates with skin on their flanks being pierced by a tiny iron hook.
“They scream. Blood comes out. A thread will be symbolically knotted through the hooks to symbolise their (the boys’) bond with divinity. Then hooks are pulled out and ash roughly applied on the wounds,” she said.
She points out that causing physical and mental pain to children are offences under IPC sections 89, 319, 320, 349, 350 and 351 and the Juvenile Justice Act penalises it.
“Who will complain? Parents will not, those who see it will not since they have no locus standi. Will a child complain? How will he even know that a crime has been committed on him?” she said.
A similar ritual, chooral muriyal, at the Chettikulangara devi temple was recently in the news after the high court upheld a ban imposed on it by the Kerala State Commission for Protection of Child Rights.
T B Suresh, a member of the commission, told DH that the commission had already made a recommendation to the state police chief seeking a ban on such rituals.
Thousands of woman devotees are set to converge in Thiruvananthapuram on Friday to pay obeisance to Attukal amma, the temple deity, and prepare an offering of pongal, made with jaggery, rice and coconut in earthen pots.
Sreelekha, a devotee herself, said she would not offer the ‘pongala’ this year unless there was “divine intervention” to stop the torture of children.
