Friday, October 2, 2009

Small Bits of News You Didn’t Know you Needed

10-year-old girl locked in room, denied access to bathroom
A 10-year-old Portales girl was forced to eat meals quickly, by herself, then locked in her room at night “to prevent her from getting up and eating food,” according to a police incident report.
The girl was also forced to wear pull-up diapers, denied bathroom access and had her head shaved as punishment for cutting her own hair, the report shows.
The details of child neglect charges against Mern and Athena Shepherd are contained in the report released Wednesday. Both were in Roosevelt County jail in lieu of $5,000 bond each.
The Shepherds were arrested Sept. 24 — six days after teachers at the girl’s elementary school contacted police because the girl appeared malnourished.
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2000 women whipped for 5 hours by priests
Two thousand teenagers and children, some as young as 10, were whipped by the temple's priests. For five hours. The priests' explanation: This whipping is a cure-all. Some 10-year-olds were lashed for not studying enough. Others were attacked for being slow to attain puberty. And menstruating teens were hit for being impure. The priests say this is nothing new. "We have been practicing this ritual for 300 years," declares Thangavelu, a priest.
The women can be seen gasping for breath; many are sobbing their hearts out. But the faith is unshakeable. Radhika, a devotee, says, "We believe that when we are whipped, we will get rid of all our mental and physical ailments and evil spirits."
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Maggots removed from woman's nose
When 70-year-old Laxmibai first got a nose bleed, no one really paid much attention to it. Only when the bleeding continued for five days and two hospitals couldn't find the cause for it that her family took her to civic-run Sion Hospital. The doctors there came up with the right diagnosis: she had maggots in her nose.
"The fly laid eggs inside her nose. We removed more than 40 maggots from her nose on Friday. The worms had started feeding on her flesh, due to which the patient was bleeding and in pain. Now we have cleaned the wound and she will be fine if there is no further infection,'' said Dr Mustafa Kapadia, ENT surgeon at Sion Hospital.
A fly lays eggs in moist areas and the maggots break out of the eggs within eight to 20 hours. Immediately, they start feeding on the place the eggs were laid on.
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