16-yr-old forced to live in park, beg after mother disowns him for ‘waywardness’

A 16-year-old boy in Lodhi Colony has become homeless after allegedly being “disowned” by his mother, a government employee, who ‘gave up’ on him due to his “waywardness”, police said on Tuesday.

A 16-year-old boy in Lodhi Colony has become homeless after allegedly being “disowned” by his mother, a government employee, who ‘gave up’ on him due to his “waywardness”, police said on Tuesday.

The boy has alleged that he was not being treated well and was evicted from his home a few months back, police said. (Shutterstock/representative photo)

The boy has alleged that he was not being treated well and was evicted from his home a few months back, they said.

“The boy had been staying at a friend’s place since April but after his friend also expressed his helplessness in keeping him at his home any further, he was forced to stay in a park and beg,” said a senior police officer.

The boy’s mother -- an employee in the ministry of finance -- had separated from her first husband and had custody of her son. She has two daughters from her second marriage; her second husband, however, died in 2012 due to liver cirrhosis.

The boy has alleged that his step-father also used to ill-treat him.

The complainant’s mother, meanwhile, said a “false case” had been registered against her.

“If I wasn’t giving him food for so many days, how could he have survived? I asked him to move out in April and when he came back, I didn’t allow him in,” she said.

The mother explained that she had ‘made all attempts’ to get him on the right path but ‘he refused to mend his ways’.

“He is a very intelligent boy but he uses his brain in destructive things. I got him admitted to good schools but he would bully students and not go to school. He would go missing for days and we would have no idea about his whereabouts,” she said.

“I took him to an academy in Noida to get admission but he didn’t write anything in the entrance test. What could I have done?,” she asked.

“When he lived with us, I used to ask him to not come home from school when I wasn’t there and instead play in the park. He used to beat his sisters. He destroyed the atmosphere at our house,” she alleged.

The boy has been rescued by the Child Welfare Committee (CWC) and taken to a children’s home and a complaint has been filed against the mother, police said.