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Elections delay Karnataka woman’s return to home

SHIMLA: Since most officials were busy in the Lok Sabha elections, which concluded on Sunday, the return of a Karnataka woman, languishing in Adarsh Home for Mentally Retarded Persons in Manali due to language barrier, to her native place has been delayed.

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Bhanu P Lohumi

Tribune News Service

Shimla, May 20

Since most officials were busy in the Lok Sabha elections, which concluded on Sunday, the return of a Karnataka woman, languishing in Adarsh Home for Mentally Retarded Persons in Manali due to language barrier, to her native place has been delayed.

The woman, Sushilamma, hails from Haveri district in Karnataka. She came in contact with an NGO during a counselling session in Manali in March this year and was in trauma. She narrated her story to Sunila Sharma, president of the Performing Group of Arts, through a mediator, who could converse in Kannada.

Her identity has been established and both governments are in touch. The process is also under way for her return.

The state government was, however, awaiting information as to which NGO was ready to take care of her and take her, said Sunila, adding that concrete steps would be taken for her rehabilitation after May 23 when the result of the elections would be out.

Sushilamma was abandoned by her husband and is illiterate. She can communicate only in Kannada. Due to language barriers, nobody could understand her. She was brought to the Nari Seva Sadan, Mashobra, by the police in 2014 and was later shifted to Manali in 2018 as the destitute home there was overcrowded.

The Directorate of Social Justice, Karnataka, had deputed a councillor, Durgesh, who came to Manali and met the woman.

“She does not remember the address of her relatives. The District Magistrate, Devengiri, adjoining Haveri district, who is supervising the case, has decided to bring her back to the state and rehabilitate her. Communication between the two states for the rehabilitation of Sushilamma is in process,” he added.

In a letter to the Social Welfare Department, Karnataka, it was informed that “Sushilamma has revealed that she is married, but her family life was not smooth. In 2014, her husband took her to the Karibasaveshwara temple and abandoned her saying he would return after two days. She waited for him for a few days and in the meantime worked as labourer at the nearby construction site. She then went to the Harihara railway station, but instead of reaching her native place, she landed in Himachal.”

She told that she is willing to go back to her sister as her parents are not alive. Earlier also, another woman from Karnataka, Saraswati, alias Padma (26), had spent two years in Hospital of Mental Health and Rehabilitation, Boileauganj, here and suffered as she could not communicate due to language barrier. However, she was finally reunited with her kin.

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