By IANS
New Delhi : The National Commission for Women (NCW) Sunday promised to provide all help to the two sisters rescued from starvation by Delhi Police even as the shocking details of their two-week starvation and death of their younger sister left the nation aghast.
Acting on a neighbour’s call, police Saturday broke open a house in Kalkaji of south Delhi to find 37-year-old Neeru dead while her sisters, Poonam, 40, and Dolly, 43, were lying nearly unconscious beside her decomposing body – seemingly unaware of the death at least four days ago despite the stink.
“We will look into the matter and try to provide some help to the two surviving sisters to rehabilitate them,” NCW member Malini Bhattacharaya told IANS.
Away from the capital on an official assignment, Bhattacharya said she would reach New Delhi Monday after which she would discuss the matter with NCW chairperson Girija Vyas and seek police report on the issue.
Expressing shock at the incident, she said: “It’s unfortunate and shocking that a woman in the capital has met the fate of starvation death.
“While NCW would like to rehabilitate the two sisters as a short-term measure, it would also try to work out a long-term strategy to ensure that women do not meet such fate.”
Vyas could not be reached for comment.
The eldest sister, the sole breadwinner for the trio after the death of their parents 12 years ago, had lost her job as a lecturer with a polytechnic institute. For the past two weeks the trio had shut themselves inside their home, not responding to any calls from neighbours or relatives.
The two surviving women are now recuperating at a private nursing home.
Their story has shocked the conscience of Indians including expatriates who wondered if India was indeed an emerging economic power if there were starvation deaths right in the heart of the capital in the absence of any social security net like those prevalent in developed western countries.
“I keep reading all sorts of feel-good stories in international media about India’s growing economic prowess, but I’m shocked to read the news about starvation death here in Delhi,” said Chetan Anand, a Dubai-based senior official of an American insurance company, currently visiting Delhi.
Anand, who quit a senor post with a state-run general insurance firm in the early 1990s to join the multinational corporation, said: “The starvation death is an unheard phenomenon in truly developed western nations and countries like the United Arab Emirates, where social security schemes would not let any citizen die of poverty and unemployment, let alone starvation.
“In India, we have often come across incidents of starvation deaths in remote areas, it’s appalling to find that happening here in its capital,” said Anand.
Narinder Kaur, another Indian based in Dubai and working as teacher, added: “We have a long way to go even before we start imagining ourselves a developed country.
“The government keeps on rolling out all sorts of figures on the growing economic prosperity, but such cases of starvation death show that India’s economic boom is merely widening the chasm between the haves and have-nots.”