A homeless woman in India regularly tied her deaf 9-year-old grandson to a pole while she went to work.
The boy, who can’t speak and suffers from cerebral palsy and epilepsy, spent his days lying on a sidewalk with his ankles fastened to a bus stop with a cloth rope, AFP reported.
“What else can I do?” the grandmother, Sakhubai Kale, told AFP. “He can’t talk, so how will he tell anyone if he gets lost?”
A local newspaper recently published pictures of young Lakhan Kale, prompting government officials to take him from the grandmother and put him in a government-run institution.
The grandmother claimed she was forced to take drastic measures after the boy was sent home from a special school.
“I am a single old woman,” she told AFP. “Nobody paid attention to me until the newspaper report.”
Lakhan’s father died years ago, and his mother ran off, the grandmother claims, leaving her to care for the boy and his 12-year-old sister, Rekha, by herself.
The family lives near the bus stop. Kale and the Lakhan’s sister sell toys and flower garlands on the street. Left alone, the boy could wander into traffic or get lost, the grandmother said.
She tied the Lakhan to her own ankles at night to keep him from slipping away.
The government’s intervention was for the best, Kale said.
“I am very happy,” she told AFP. “What else would I want other than for him to be looked after?”
