A deeply disturbing case out of Bengaluru has rattled every working parent who leaves their toddlers at a daycare or creche for the day. Parents who drop their children off at a reputed daycare centre usually assume their child is in safe hands, but this incident from Bengaluru shows just how fragile that assumption can be.
What actually happened in Bengaluru
The case is linked to a daycare centre operating inside Capgemini's HAL campus, a well known IT campus in Bengaluru. Toddlers aged 2 to 3 years were allegedly subjected to horrific cruelty and abuse at this facility. The matter came to light after a video of the incident went viral on social media, following which an FIR was registered against 5 women caregivers, Manjula, Vijayalakshmi, Sindhu, Bhavani and Bindu.
According to the FIR, whenever these young children cried, the caregivers would lock them inside the bathroom instead of consoling them. It did not stop there. As punishment, children were allegedly forced to sit inside the drum of a front loading washing machine. They were also made to sit on a western toilet seat, and when they cried, water from the toilet's jet spray was directly sprayed onto their faces. This entire episode is a wake up call for every parent who sends their child to a creche or daycare.
This naturally raises the question of what parents should actually watch out for while leaving a child at a daycare, so that such incidents can be avoided. Taking a lesson from this painful Bengaluru incident, every parent should immediately check these 5 essential things.
1. Insist on live CCTV access on your phone
Most large daycare centres today do have CCTV cameras installed, but parents are rarely given live access to that footage. Parents should clearly tell the daycare management that they want a live CCTV feed on their mobile phone, so that they can check in on how their child is being treated even during work hours. If a centre is reluctant or refuses to provide a live feed, it is wiser to avoid leaving your child there.
2. Make unscheduled, surprise visits a habit
Apart from the fixed drop off and pick up times, parents should occasionally show up at the daycare centre unannounced and without any prior notice. Turning up suddenly during lunch time or in the afternoon, when children are usually asleep or crying, helps parents see exactly how the staff is handling the children at that moment. Such surprise visits keep the staff alert at all times and discourage any carelessness or mistreatment toward the children.
3. Learn to spot changes in the child's behaviour
Children aged 2 to 3 years often cannot verbally describe their fear or suffering, but their behaviour tends to reveal a lot. If a child suddenly starts crying unusually at the mention of the daycare, wakes up startled at night, starts wetting the bed, becomes unusually irritable without reason, or gets scared on hearing the name of a particular caregiver, these red flags should never be ignored. Such signs can point to something deeply troubling.
4. Check caregiver backgrounds and the staff to child ratio
It is essential to find out whether the people looking after your child have undergone a background check, such as police verification. Equally important is checking how many children are left in the care of a single caregiver. When the number of toddlers in a group is high and the number of caregivers is low, staff can end up taking out their frustration on the children, a pattern that has often been observed in such cases.
5. Regularly check the child's body and talk to them
Despite a busy work schedule, parents should spend some quality time with their child every evening and gently ask them, in a playful manner, about the environment at the daycare. While bathing or changing the child's clothes each day, parents should carefully look for any unusual marks, rashes or injuries on the body. If the child tries to say something, that should never be brushed aside and must be heard with complete seriousness.
The Bengaluru incident is not just a crime, it is a direct blow to the trust that working parents place in an institution and its systems. Only strong safety measures combined with constant parental vigilance can protect children from such dangerous environments. Stay alert, stay safe.
