Kids to undergo surgeries

Doc makes free surgery offer

KALABURAGI: Six children with special needs were buried neck deep in compost pits in Kalaburagi district — nearly 590km from Bengaluru and considered one of the most backward in North Karnataka — on Thursday morning under the belief that exposure to sharp rays during solar eclipse will cure them of deformities.Following a tip-off, the district child protection task force rescued the children and reunited them with their families after a medical examination. The incidents were reported from three villages in the district: Taj-Sultanpur on the outskirts of Kalaburagi town, and Ainolli and Gadi-Lingadalli villages in Chincholi taluk.District administration sources said the children remained buried in the pits for the full duration of the solar eclipse in a rerun of an incident reported a decade ago. Child Welfare Committee chairman Reena D’Souza said they were handed over to the parents after a counselling session. Corrective surgeries will be performed on all the kids in the next two weeks, she said.Police sources said Puja Khemaling, 5, Sanjana Suryakanth, 3, and Kaveri Mallappa, 11, were buried in sandpits in a bid to cure to their disabilities at Taj-Sultanpur. After daybreak, villagers reportedly saw the kids’ families going towards the pit. The families reportedly put all three in a compost pit and covered them with mud till their neck. Sources said they had been advised by village elders about benefits of a solar eclipse as the heat generated will help cure the kids. In the other two incidents from Chincholi, Mohammad Imran was rescued from Ainolli village. Identity of two other kids in Gadi-Lingadalli was yet to be ascertained.After watching the burial drama on TV, Dr S Kamareddy, an orthopedic surgeon from Kalaburagi, has offered to perform rectification surgeries free. Of the three kids rescued from outside Kalaburagi city, he said two could go under the knife and the third — threeyear-old Sanjana — will have to wait for a while.