A fire ripped through a privately-run mental asylum in southern India on Monday, killing at least 25 inmates, many of whom had been chained to their beds, police and eyewitnesses said.
The asylum was one of more than a dozen located in the tiny Muslim pilgrimage town of Erwadi in Tamil Nadu state, where there is a shrine believed to hold curative powers for people suffering from mental illness.
"Police at the scene have so far recovered 25 bodies which were charred beyond recognition," police inspector Palai Swamy told AFP from nearby Ramanaitphura town, some 500 kilometers (300 miles) south of Madras.
"Five others have been seriously injured."
According to Swamy, the fire broke out in the early hours of Monday morning and quickly engulfed the asylum, which was little more that a hut with a thatched roof.
"Only a few people managed to escape," Swamy said, confirming reports that many of the inmates had been chained up for the night.
Some 40 people were inside the building when the fire broke out. The exact cause of the blaze was not immediately known.
District police chief Sanjeev Kumar said he was investigating a report from the owner of the asylum, Syed Mohideen Pasha, who cited staff members as saying a gang had set fire to the asylum.
Local reporters quoted eyewitnesses as saying the corpses of nearly all those who died were still manacled to their beds after the fire had been put out.
The chief district administrator, S. Vijayakumar, told AFP that nine people had been rescued from the blaze, some of them with very serious injuries.
Erwadi has a poor reputation for its treatment of the mentally ill.
There are as many as 30 asylums in the town -- many of them just makeshift huts with no specialised facilities or trained staff.
Most are converted private houses, whose owners provide room and board to mentally ill patients brought to Erwadi for a cure by their relatives, who often leave them there for long periods.
Earlier this year, there was a report of 10 people being beaten to death in one asylum.
"Unfortunately, mental illness is not really recognized as an illness in India," said Vibhar Parthasarthy of the National Commission for Women, which does a lot of work with psychiatric patients.
"The problem lies not just with the government, but society as a whole. Even families don't recognize it," Parthasarthy said.
"Consciousness is beginning to rise in a large number of urban areas with more institutes and specialists taking this up. But we have a long way to go." -- MADRAS, India (AFP)
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