Old woman discarded as garbage by daughters

CHENNAI: After being treated by her three daughters and grandsons like dirt, a 75-year-old woman was literally dumped in a garbage yard in the western Erode district of Tamil Nadu.

Chinnammal Palaniappan woke up to the crude reality on Sunday morning to find herself in her new home - a garbage yard - where her two grandsons had abandoned her, according to police.

The frail widow had been living with the youngest of her three daughters, all residents of Erode. The siblings had been squabbling among themselves on who should shoulder the ''burden''.

 As the three sisters could not reach an agreement on who should take care of the indisposed and bed-ridden old woman, the youngest daughter, Sarasa, had on July 14 night asked her two sons to leave their grandmother somewhere far away so that she could not trace her way back.  

Accordingly, the two boys engaged a vehicle and dumped Chinnammal in the garbage dump on the periphery of the town.

The weak woman could not muster enough strength to move from the filth. Hearing her weak moans, a local couple passing by rescued her. The good Samaritans took her home and offered her food.

Regaining some strength, the old woman, with a hint of fear and agony in her eyes, narrated her tale of woe and her 'journey' to the garbage dump.

Mohanasundari, who rescued the old woman, shifted her to the premises of Jayabharath Social Welfare Awareness Trust, of which her father K M Murugesan was the Managing Trustee, as the old woman could not recall her daughter's address. The Trustees took care of the woman for three days and informed the Social Welfare Ministry.

Shocked by the incident, the Social Welfare department officials shifted her to an old age home called 'N L Karunai Illam' and directed the district administration to take adequate care of the  old woman and initiate action against her daughters.

The district police were trying to locate the kin of the old woman in Thindal area in the district as all she could recall was that she lived there.

Mr Murugesan said Chinnammal was now fine and was being looked after well.