One war, two nuclear tests, five Prime Ministers, countless cricket matches. That's just a sample of the India, Annapurna Sahu has missed since 1985.What was she doing in this period ? Watching the peeling plasters on the walls of her decrepit 5x4 ft room in the Gopabandhu Bazar area of Dhenkanal town in which nothing ever happened.
Termed insane by her family members, and therefore unfit to live with them, 45-year-old Annapurna was today freed from her dingy room, in which she was locked away for more than 20 years by her father.
Freedom came after police were tipped off about the illegal detention.
Some 20 years ago, Annapurna reportedly started behaving erratically, following which her father decided that it would be better to keep her confined in a room behind their house, rather than take her to psychiatrists.
Since then, Annapurna has remained in the stuffy room where she ate, slept and even defecated.
"She kept running away here and there. So I kept her confined," says her unrepentant father, a prosperous businessman.
Annapurna's father told the police that she was not given clothes as she tore them. "She would tear them out. For the last four months we didn't give her any clothes at all," he told the police.
After spending more than 20 years in the ill-lit room, Annapurna looks like a ghost of her self. Her tousled hair has turned grey.
She has practically forgotten how to talk.
Though a case under Section 341 of the Indian Penal Code can be lodged against Annapurna's father for illegal detention.
But far from taking action against her father, the police are eager to defend him.
"After all he is the woman's father," the local police officer said.
source : The Telegraph.