Maharashtra: 12-year-old boy, labelled mentally 'deficient' by govt, tops class

This story shows how absolutely ignored are the homes where rescued children in Maharashtra are kept. The Bombay High Court recently told the Maharashtra government to survey homes for mentally deficient children after a suo motu PIL was filed regarding the government’s laxity towards such children, Mumbai Mirror reported. The report said that it was brought to the court’s notice that a 12-year-old boy from the Mankhurd home for mentally deficient children had topped his class in the first-term exams. [caption id=“attachment_1782321” align=“alignleft” width=“380” class=" “]  Representational image. Reuters[/caption] Following this, a division bench of Justice V M Kanade and Justice Anuja Prabhudessai passed the directive and ordered Maharashtra government to move children with normal intelligence quotient (IQ) to regular shelter homes and send them to school with normal children. Rehabilitation of 93 children to Mankhurd MDC, including 35 of those who were rescued from Adivasi Magaswargiya Krishi Vikas Sanstha-run shelter home at Kavdas at Shahpur and from the Panvel-based shelter run by the Kalyani Mahila Bal Seva Sanstha, was part of Bajpai’s project. The 12-year-old is a part of the same project. According to the report, the child was transferred to Mankhurd MDC home from a normal home in 2009. Although, he was sent to a school only last year for the first time and that too directly to Class 2. Read the full story here.