Guwahati: In what has triggered angry protests in Upper Assam’s Dibrugarh district, a doctor and his wife who is the principal of a government college are accused to have poured boiling water on their minor domestic help while he was sleeping.

The protest broke out after a video went viral on social media showing the injury marks on the minor’s neck and shoulders. Police said, “We have registered a case against the doctor Siddhi Prasad Deori and his wife Mitali Konwar who is the principal of Moran College but they are evading arrest so far.”  Asserting that no one will be spared, police on Thursday said that they have arrested Priyankshu Deuri, son of the accused and Kunal Senapati.

Assam Police had registered the case against a doctor and his wife on Wednesday for allegedly pouring boiling water on their 13-year-old domestic help.

Officials in Dibrugarh said that on August 27, Siddhi Prasad Deori and his wife Mitali Konwar, who is the principal of Moran College, had poured boiling water on the minor while he was sleeping.

The Assam State Commission for Protection of Child Rights has also taken cognisance to the incident and issued recommendations to the police to register a case under sections 75, 79 of the Juvenile Justice Act, 2015, and under section 14 of CALPR Act, 1986, along with IPC and arrest the accused at the earliest.

It is significant that in 2006, Deori, the then store in-charge of the Assam Medical College and Hospital (AMCH) in Dibrugarh, was suspended on charges of violating service conditions. He was accused of managing a private nursing home too.

The child was rescued by the Social Welfare Committee of Dibrugarh.

The child said that for one-and-half years he had been staying in Deori’s house where he used to do domestic chores, wash vehicles, etc. and was frequently beaten with a cane. The child rights activists claimed that there are very few such cases which come to light. Pointing out that such exploitation are rampant in the state, a child rights activists claimed that hundreds of children, because of poverty and many other reasons, are working as domestic help in the houses of officers, magistrate and businessmen but there was hardly any initiative to rescue them.

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