Thaindian News

Jaipur, March 4 (IANS) Unable to pay for her treatment and getting no assistance from the government, the family of a mentally-ill woman in Rajasthan’s Karauli district has kept her chained to a tree for more than five years now.

Ummedi Devi, 35, a resident of Dabar village in the district, over 200 km from Jaipur, developed the illness over five years back and since then has been kept under restraint.

Tied with iron chains to a neem tree in their house, Ummedi eats and sleeps on a wooden bed near the tree.

“We started to keep her in chains after she developed some mental illness five years ago and became violent and hysteric. She started throwing stones at neighbours. It became the cause of frequent quarrels with other villagers, so we were compelled to keep her tied to the tree,” her husband Bharatu Bairwa told IANS.

He said he could not afford proper treatment for his wife. “I am a labourer and hardly earn Rs.100 a day. I could not afford the costly treatment, so her situation deteriorated with time,” Bharatu said.

When she becomes hysteric, the family members give her sleeping pills to calm her down.

Bairwa said efforts to get help from the government for Ummedi’s treatment were of no avail.

“I took her to a camp organised by the government in our village a month ago and sought help. The officials there assured me of including us in the below poverty line (BPL) category and providing help under various government schemes, but nothing has happened so far,” he said.

A team of the state government’s social welfare department had also visited the woman last week but were of no help.

“Instead of getting her treatment, they said they would send my wife to her parents’ home in Bharatpur district,” Bairwa said.