Thiruvananthapuram: Worried parents rushed to a day-care centre functioning in Kerala’s commercial capital, Kochi, on Tuesday after a video surfaced, showing a one-and-a-half year old child being beaten by the person in charge of the day-care.
The short video, apparently shot by one of the staff members at the day-care, shows the day-care in-charge beating and shouting at the child.
Following a furore over the incident after the video was shared on social media, police took into custody the woman in charge of the day-care centre, identified as Mini Mathew.
The day-care centre takes care of about two dozen children, and functions at Palarivattam in Kochi. Several parents rushed to the centre after the video became public and some of them got into an altercation with Mathew, who refused she had behaved in the manner alleged by the parents.
Early reports said parents had got suspicious about the goings-on at the centre, after injury marks were found on the children, and when some children showed fear of going to the centre.
While many expressed shock at the video footage, several people also commented on social media that the alleged beating was exaggerated by social media commentators and that a clearer viewing of the video showed the woman actually beating the floor close to the child’s leg, to serve a warning.
Some others said these incidents were a natural extension of the breaking up of the joint-family system in the state and the emergence of nuclear families where both parents pursued careers and cannot spare time for children.
