Inmates chained to beds killed in fire at home

Twenty-five inmates of a mental home, all chained to their beds, died after a fire swept through their institution in southern India's Tamil Nadu state yesterday. Fifteen others, of the 43 inmates in a row of dormitories, sustained serious burn injuries and have been admitted to local hospitals.

Police said the victims at the "asylum" attached to a mosque in Erwadi, a small town around 350 miles south of the state capital Madras, had no chance of escaping the fire. The blaze reportedly broke out just before dawn after a paraffin lamp overturned. It took the town's fire service and volunteers over two hours to extinguish it.

Officials said the institution's caretakers ignored the alarm raised by the inmates, assuming it to be their normal, daily screaming. Police said most of the bodies were charred beyond recognition and that four people, including the "institute's" owner and three assistants, had been arrested.

The mental home was one of around 30 located in the tiny Muslim pilgrimage town where locals believe a small bathing place has curative powers for those suffering from mental illnesses. Mental illness is not normally acknowledged in Indian families, especially among illiterates who feel it is God's curse for ill deeds in the past life and are convinced it can be cured through exorcism or prayer.

Many "mental" institutions in the Erwadi region are no more than makeshift huts with neither specialised facilities nor trained staff. Mentally ill patients are sent there by their families to be cured, believing them to be possessed by evil spirits. Earlier this year, there were reports of 10 people being beaten to death in one such "asylum" and an equal number dying of gastroenteritis.

A former state government had ordered an investigation into these "asylums" and arranged for their inmates to be transferred to state-run hospitals for free treatment. Ms Thara Srinivasan, director of India's Schizophrenia Care and Research Foundation, said most of the patients at Erwadi were schizophrenics who had been abandoned by their families.

"They are left in chains for months or years on end and only the slightly less violent among them are taken to attend some kind of daily prayer ritual," she added.