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BLAZE KILLS 25 AT SHELTER FOR MENTALLY ILL IN SOUTHERN INDIA

The New York Times

7 August 2001

 

By Barry Bearak

Fire swiftly consumed a thatch-walled shelter for the mentally ill

in southern India on Monday morning, killing at least 25 inmates who

were shackled to poles, the police said.

 

Some witnesses reported that when they first heard screams they

assumed it was the customary ranting. Then they saw the blaze

lighting up the predawn sky. "Everyone inside was chained around

their feet, and they didn't have much chance of getting out of that

shed," said Mumtaj Begum, a woman at the scene.

 

The shelter was little more than a shanty made of palm fronds, one

of a dozen or more places to stow the mentally ill in Erwadi, a town

about 350 miles south of Madras.

 

Inmates were manacled, the authorities said. They slept on the

ground. No doctors worked at the privately owned facility, and any

hopes for psychiatric recovery were placed in miracles. Erwadi is a

pilgrimage site where a Muslim saint was buried 800 years ago.

 

Care for the mentally ill is no source of pride in impoverished

India. Monday's fire joins many other ghastly incidents that have

been described at length in newspapers and lawsuits. But little is

ever done to remedy the situation. The cause of Monday's fire was

unknown and the shelter's owners were arrested as the police pursued

an investigation.

 

"There are clear guidelines to prevent the chaining of people, but

no one is paying much attention," said Ravi Nair, executive director

of the South Asia Human Rights Documentation Center. "The treatment

of the mentally ill is a tragedy."

 

He added, "In both India and Pakistan, there's this superstition

that if a mental patient is kept near the grave of a saint, they will

be cured by some sort of hocus-pocus."

 

About 45 people lived in the overcrowded tumbledown shelter, the

police said. Some were not manacled as tightly as others and were

able to flee uninjured. Five inmates were hospitalized with severe

burns.

 

Many of the bodies, blackened by fire, remained at the smoldering

scene for several hours.