A couple was on Sunday arrested for allegedly assaulting their 11-year-old domestic help who was found on a roadside with multiple injuries, police said.
Saraswati Pradhan was found in Prem Nagar area on Friday by some locals. She was handed over to police, which got her admitted in a hospital.
After the incident came to light, Sunil Mohanty and his wife Sonali were arrested from their Prem Nagar house and booked under different sections of IPC, Juvenile Justice Act and Child Labour (Prevention) Act.
The couple has confessed to have assaulted the girl, police claimed.
The condition of Saraswati, who was admitted in the M K C G Medical College Hospital here, was stable and she was gradually improving, an attendant doctor said.
Sunil is working as a driver, while Sonali is with a private bank. The couple have a five-year-old girl.
The couple had brought the girl from Risingia village in Kandhamal district to help them in household chores and promised her that they would let her continue her studies.
"I had left her at a residential school in Tikabali. But she did not want to stay there," Saraswati's father Srilunka Pradhan, who arrived here after the incident, said.
{{/usCountry}}"I had left her at a residential school in Tikabali. But she did not want to stay there," Saraswati's father Srilunka Pradhan, who arrived here after the incident, said.
{{/usCountry}}The government had ordered the Ganjam District Child Welfare Committee to enquire into the incident.
Meanwhile, some Child Rights activists have expressed their concern over the incident.