She cried 'Papa, Papa', yet parents abandoned her

Jaipur: She pleaded 'Papa, Papa'. But it failed to change the minds of her parents as they abandoned their 12-year-old girl at the Lalgarh station in Bikaner, local media reported.

Sonu, a resident of Khetwali area in Bihar, was happy when her parents told her they were going to visit Rajasthan.

"First I was taken to Ramdevra shrine near Pokhran in Jaisalmer district for prayers. Then my parents brought me to a temple in Bikaner. But at the railway station they told me that I would have to live here on my own," Sonu said with tears in her eyes.

"I pleaded again and again. I cried. But nothing stopped them from travelling back on the train," Sonu said. "They did not even think about where would I live and what would I do in this unknown city."

"I had gone to the station Saturday night. I saw this girl crying. I asked her why and she narrated everything to me. I brought her to my house in Rampur colony," local resident Rameshwar Prajapat said.

The residents of the colony took her to the police station where the officials told them to keep her for a few days, hoping that her parents would return. "I do not want to go back to my parents," the girl said.

"My mother used to beat me regularly and my father never used to stand up for me." She is presently staying in a Nari Niketan — a state-run women's home — in Bikaner.

"We will conduct a medical examination and would also try to find her parents in Bihar. The girl knows the name of her parents and knows the area too. But she is not able to give us the exact name and location of the village," a district administration official said.

Meanwhile, a professor in Rajasthan Agriculture University has come forward to offer shelter to Sonu. "I want her to be in safe hands. I have offered her shelter. I can take responsibility for her education," Sunita Verma, assistant professor in Rajasthan Agriculture University, Bikaner, said on telephone on Tuesday.

Female foeticide and infanticide are common in India. Poverty, ignorance of family planning and cost of dowry have been cited as possible causes.