What lies ahead for Priya?
Although only five years old, Priya, recovering from head injuries in her hospital bed, has lived through tremendous upheavals already. The last week has been a trial. Priya not only lost her parents, but also went through the sordid experience of seeing them murdered. But that's not all. Her loss is all the more poignant as she has been orphaned for the second time in her little life, her biological mother having died soon after giving birth to her and her father having passed away just a month before she was born in Uttar Pradesh.
Her world seemed to brighten , however, when Pavan Kumar Maheshwari and his wife Babita decided to adopt her as they did not have a child of their own. Happy to have found Priya, the couple from Aligarh in Uttar Pradesh (UP), came to live in Bengaluru three years ago when Pavan decided to open a restaurant in the city.
But fate intervened again. Just as Priya, happy and playful like any other child her age, began going to a nursery school nearby, her foster parents were murdered, leaving her orphaned for the second time. While the murderers spared her life, they did leave her badly injured, hitting her on her scalp. The girl now lies on her hospital bed at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS) recovering from her injuries, unaware of the second blow that life has dealt her .
“I don’t want to stay in hospital, I want to go home to my mother and father,” she pleads with her uncles, Sanjay (Babita's elder brother) and Devesh Maheshwari (Pavan’s brother). The only consolation appears to be Priya's quick recovery. "She has started eating biscuits and chapathi. I gave her idli, vada and milk too. She does eat but wakes up at regular intervals crying," says Sanjay, who has come from Delhi to be at Priya's bedside with his brother, Anup.
Pavan's brothers, Basant Lal and Devesh too rushed to the city from Uttar Pradesh on August 3 after getting a call from a security guard of an ATM working near his restaurant, informing them about the brutal incident. “Priya recognised us all at the hospital. She often cries, but when we tell her that we will take her home once she recovers, she stops. She responds whenever we say 'hi' or 'bye'. She was in Aligarh and Delhi just some months ago with Babita and Pavan who came to spend Holi with us and we had a very good time. I received a call from Babita just a few days ago asking whether I had got the rakhi she had sent,” recalls an emotional Sanjay.
Priya could soon move to a new home as Devesh, who she seems closest too, has volunteered to take care of her. “Whenever they came to Uttar Pradesh Priya spent most of her time in our house. We are just waiting for her to recover to take her home,” says Devesh. Meanwhile, the hunt continues for the murderers of the little girl's parents. While the police suspect the involvement of Karthik, their restaurant’s cook-cum-assistant, no arrests have been made as yet.
Post new comment