Disabled woman lodges report on abuse

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

The Malay Mail

Call to probe other homes
By Najiah Najib

THE adviser of a training centre for the disabled, where an inmate claimed she was abused by the operator, has urged the police to “thoroughly” investigate the matter and at the same time probe other centres for similar abuses.

“I urge the police to be very thorough in their investigation.

Since this issue has cropped up, it is best that the police start looking into the operations of other charity homes as well,” said Petaling Jaya City councillor Anthony Thanasayan, who is also the adviser to Independent Living and Training Centre (ILTC) in Taman Garing, Rawang.

Wheelchair-bound inmate A.

Kogilavani, 29, claimed in her police report that she was abused on several occasions by the wheelchair- bound centre operator, Gurdip Kaur Pritam Singh, 47.

“It is good that the matter is being looked into.

‘‘We should take this as a lesson to learn some things about charity homes that we may not be aware of before,” said the 47-year-old who is wheelchair-bound himself.

Anthony said it was important for the police to carry out a full investigation on ILTC and find out what actually took place.

As the adviser to ILTC, Anthony said he would give his full cooperation to the police and help them in any way.

On the allegations against the operator, Anthony said he would be shocked if the allegations were true as he had known Gurdip Kaur and her husband, G. Sivasangararao, for a long time.

“The couple are both disabled people themselves, so they understand the challenges that a handicapped person has to go through.

There may be some yelling off and on within the centre, but I don’t believe the couple would resort to violence.” Anthony said ILTC may not be perfect, but they do a good job.

The centre had a good track record and its operators had helped a lot of disabled people, especially in Rawang, he said.

He added that ILTC was also one of the very few homes that allowed its residents to stay there for free.

He advised the centre operators to make their policies clearer, and to not accept people they can’t handle.

“Disabled people don’t always get the support they need, and may not socialise as much as ablebodied people, so their perspective of things could be different.”