Lives & deaths trapped amid apathy, 'due process'

THEY die as they lived: nameless. In shelters across the erstwhile Nalgonda district, unclaimed bodies testify to a system failing its most vulnerable: persons with intellectual disabilities or severe mental health conditions.

- A SESHACHARYULU @Nalgonda

Many such persons — abandoned by their families or migrants from other states seeking work in Telangana — are rescued from the streets but denied long-term care unless they navigate a labyrinth of legal hoops.

Trapped between apathy and procedure, over 500 such patients have perished in five years. With disability pensions inadequate and families overwhelmed, activists demand urgent reforms: survival, they say, hinges on reforming policies that prioritize paperwork over humanity.

Organisers of many shelters and ashrams said that the causes of death include malnutrition, infections and chronic illnesses — many of which trace back to prolonged homelessness.

With the help of NGOs, the police have been relocating such people from public spaces into shelters, also attempting to trace their families by circulating their photos at nearby police stations.