Help pours in for abandoned sisters as police watch over them 24x7

NEW DELHI: Help has started to pour in for two girls rescued from a Delhi house last week, with individuals and NGOs offering food and clothes to the minors, police

NEW DELHI: Help has started to pour in for two girls rescued from a Delhi house last week, with individuals and NGOs offering food and clothes to the minors, police said on Saturday.

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The girls – aged 8 and three-and-half years – were locked up for four days in their one-room house in Samaypur Badli in outer Delhi without food and water.

Maggot-infested wounds on their heads had started to rot. One of the girls is said to be in a serious condition. Both are recuperating at a city hospital.

Their father was arrested on Saturday after he admitted to have killed their two-and-half-year-old brother on August 18, the day the two girls were rescued.

Police officers looking after the girls said people from countries such as the US and Canada have been offering relief for the children.

Members of NGOs and couples have visited the girls with clothes, toys and food, they said. Some showed interest in adopting the girls.

Three police personnel have been deployed round-the-clock in the ward to ensure the girls are not disturbed.

Vikramjit Singh, DCP (outer), said they have formed a team to trace their mother, who is said to have abandoned the family.

The team will approach her parents and other family members to know her whereabouts. Her husband claimed that she left them three months ago and may have eloped with someone else.

Investigators are verifying his claims but they have not ruled out the possibility the man murdering his wife.

Police arrested the father after neighbours spotted him in the locality.

Much to the surprise of interrogators, he told them that he allegedly drowned his third child in the Munak canal in Bawana area as he was crying for food and milk.

He claimed that he was unable to arrange money to feed his children after his wife, the sole earning member of the family had disappeared, the police said.

The father said the boy had contracted infection in his leg from his sisters.

The child’s body was fished out of the canal the same evening after a local found it floating in the water. The body was preserved in a mortuary for identification.

Earlier, neighbours had seen the children’s grandmother taking away the boy on August 16. During interrogation, the father said he brought back his son the same night.

On August 18, the father allegedly beat up his children as they demanded food. His son’s cries irritated him so much so that the father took the child, locked the girls in the room, and left, said the officer.

Police said the father consumed liquor near the Munak canal. As the child was hungry and crying for food, the father allegedly picked him up and flung him into the canal.

“The neighbours got to know something was wrong after stench started spreading. It was difficult to enter the room because of the strong, foul smell. The sisters were nearly dead and their wounds had started to rot,” a police official had said about how the girls were found.

The landlord of the one-room house had informed the police about the girls.

“There was no food in the room. There were no windows for air circulation and the hot and humid room was infested with mosquitoes and flies,” he had said.