A mentally-ill girl who was rescued from the jungles in Uttar Pradesh was termed the real life Mowgli, but officials have rubbished the reports that she was living with monkeys, was walking on all fours and was found naked.
She was found by the police in the Katerniyaghat forests in January and was at the Bahraich district hospital after that.
Media reports also said that ““policemen had to fight off monkeys surrounding her”.
An Indian Express report quotes Head Constable Sarvajeet Yaadav as saying:
She was moving around on her haunches. She was wearing a frock and kachchha (knickers). She was very weak and tried to move away on seeing us… There were no monkeys. She was not naked, and she wasn’t using her hands to walk. I don’t know how these stories are being spread.
As part of the patrol team, Yadav and his colleagues followed up on a 100 emergency helpline call and found the girl sitting by the road connecting Bahraich to Lakhimpur on the evening of 24 January. A passerby had seen the girl and alerted the police.
Far from being raised by monkeys, as was being said in the news, the girl seemed to have been abandoned by her parents, The Guardian reports divisional forest officer GP Singh as saying. He added that though there were monkeys in the vicinity she wasn’t found with them.
We are 100 percent sure she had not been by the road for more than 24 hours.Ram Avtar Yadav, Motipur SHO told The Indian Express
Yadav’s colleagues at Motipur police station say the girl, estimated to be 11, was too weak to stand and hence dragged herself on her haunches.
Dr D K Singh, the Chief Medical Superintendent at Bahraich district hospital, says a Hindi newspaper first called her the “Mowgli girl”. He and the hospital have then been flooded with calls and visitors since.
Singh, who accuses a sub-inspector of fanning the Mowgli story, believes the theory of her living with monkeys caught on as she would eat food that she spilled off the floor, and kick anyone who approached her.
The girl has been named Ehsaas and was shifted to Lucknow’s Nirvan Hospital for the mentally challenged on Saturday for future care.
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)