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In the second week of June, an elderly woman escaped from an old age home in Thenmala in Kerala’s Kollam district and sought help from local residents. What she revealed set off an investigation that uncovered allegations of torture, sexual abuse, and neglect at Punarjani, a shelter home where 12 elderly people were living in poor conditions.
Authorities later found that Punarjani had been operating without a licence and outside the knowledge of government agencies responsible for monitoring such facilities.
What police officers and activists encountered at the shelter home was a disturbing picture of neglect. The building was in a dilapidated condition, with inadequate facilities, poor hygiene, and cluttered living spaces unfit for its elderly residents, comprising nine men and three women.
Following the death of a woman who owned the establishment on April 25 this year, the management of the facility was reportedly taken over by her husband, Brahmadas. He was arrested based on complaints filed by two women inmates.
“Two cases have been filed against Brahmadas, one on rape charges and another over outraging the modesty of women. We have intensified inquiry into other complaints,” Thenmala Inspector Praveen JS told TNM.
All the inmates were shifted to Gandhi Bhavan, a government-run shelter home, in Pathanapuram.
The State Elderly Commission, which examined the issue, revealed that the institution had been functioning without proper authorisation. The commission said action would be taken after hearing both the complainants and the accused.
The allegations emerging from Punarjani have raised troubling questions that go beyond a single shelter home. As Kerala’s elderly population grows and hundreds of old age homes operate across the state, activists, lawyers, former care workers, and even officials within the Social Justice Department point to weak monitoring, severe staff shortages, and the rise of unregistered institutions functioning outside regulatory oversight. The case has exposed how some of the state’s most vulnerable residents can fall through the cracks of a system meant to protect them.
A system that never saw Punarjani
The questions that came up in the case were echoed by the Kerala High Court itself.
Justices Devan Ramachandran and Basant Balaji raised the issue on June 19 while considering a petition registered following reports of ill-treatment at Punarjani.
“For some reason, none of the systems, including the police, were aware of this; and it was only when the abuses suffered by the victims were brought to the knowledge of the world that action was initiated,” the court observed.
The bench also highlighted the vulnerability of the victims.
“The situation is exacerbated in this case because the victims are all senior citizens, many of them over 70 years in age, hopeless and extremely vulnerable. That they should have been subjected to such abuse in a state where there is a department for senior citizens is extremely unfortunate and beyond comprehension.”
The observations cut to the heart of the issue. Kerala has an elaborate regulatory framework on paper. Yet homes like Punarjani continue to function outside it.
According to an official in the Social Justice Department, all old age homes operating legally in Kerala must register with the Orphanage Control Board (OCB), which functions under the department.
Licences are renewed every three years. To obtain renewal, institutions must submit building fitness certificates and other mandatory documents. Only after scrutiny and approval by the OCB can the renewal happen.
The process also includes inspections.
“We have OCB members representing each district. To grant a renewal, this member will visit the institution, check the facilities there, and if there are any corrections needed, they communicate them clearly. Only after that is the registration actually granted,” the officer explained.
Homes receiving government grants are subjected to additional inspections.
On paper, the system appears comprehensive.
The problem, officials and activists say, lies in poor monitoring and limitations in the implementation of the current system.
Women’s rights lawyer J Sandhya said these gaps have serious consequences.
“There should be rigorous monitoring as well as surprise, regular inspections of these centres. But the department faces a severe staff shortage,” she told TNM.
The rise of unregistered homes
Officials say one of the biggest challenges lies outside the formal regulatory framework.
“There are some individuals who operate without getting a licence from the OCB and misuse this situation,” the officer said.
According to him, many of these establishments operate primarily as businesses.
“They take advantage of people in families with ongoing issues, they charge money and run it as a paid facility. They don’t display any signboards, or operate under names like a charitable trust, and slowly bring people in and house them.”
The officer said such facilities are appearing increasingly across the state.
“Such set-ups are popping up in many places in Kerala. These centres don’t have any facilities or have very minimal space and facilities.”
In some cases, authorities have allegedly uncovered financial exploitation as well. “There have been cases where people running such centres had transferred the entire property of some inmates to the institution’s name,” he said.
The department’s ability to detect such centres is limited. “The Social Justice Department does not have offices below the district level. Other than the OCB members in each district, there is no machinery to check at the grassroots level,” he explained.
That responsibility, he argued, must increasingly fall on local self-government institutions.
“Intervention is needed from the respective panchayats, corporations, and municipalities. They must ensure proper licensing for any such institution operating within their limits,” the officer said.
Staff shortages make inspections unachievable
Kerala’s elderly population has grown steadily over the years and so has the number of old age homes.
In 2016, Kerala had 577 old age homes, of which 16 were state-run. According to Social Justice Department data from 2024, the number has risen to 722 homes, including 35 paid institutions, housing more than 22,180 inmates. Of these, only 16 are government-run.
The increase in institutions has not been matched by a corresponding increase in monitoring capacity.
According to sources in the Social Justice Department, severe staff shortages have crippled inspection mechanisms. In many districts, only a single person is assigned to oversee visits to institutions under the department.
The department also relies on counsellors to regularly visit institutions.
“Across Kerala, the majority of people working as counsellors who visit these institutions hold an MSW or an MSc in Psychology and have five to 10 years of experience in this field,” an officer from the department said.
However, most work on an honorarium basis.
“The problem is that their honorarium was fixed back in 2012-13 at around Rs 14,000 per month. There is a severe shortage because many people with these qualifications are not willing to work full-time for this honorarium.”
The counsellors play a crucial role.
“They visit these institutions, sit and talk to the inmates, counsel them, evaluate the facilities carefully to check for any deficiencies, advise the management on how to resolve those issues, and act as a bridge to report any necessary matters to the Social Justice Department,” the officer said.
Even the inspection mechanism for renewal itself is stretched thin.
“In the current system, there is only one member for about three districts. They have to visit each centre to grant renewal, so on a single day they might have to travel to 10 or 15 places, which could be scattered in different areas. So it’s not possible to visit and resolve everything accurately,” the officer said.
Warnings that were never fully addressed
Concerns about abuse inside privately-run old age homes are not new.
As far back as 2016, then MLA MK Muneer raised the issue in the Kerala Assembly through a Calling Attention motion. He cited findings from an independent survey that reportedly revealed instances of sexual exploitation of elderly inmates in privately-run institutions.
Then Social Justice Minister KK Shailaja acknowledged that such incidents did occur in certain homes and assured a probe into the allegations.
It was only in 2025 that the State Elderly Commission was established to address challenges faced by elderly people, including neglect, exploitation, and abandonment.
But activists say the fundamental concerns remain. Monitoring of old age homes continues to be limited despite repeated warnings from experts and lawmakers.
The Thenmala case has become one of the first major tests of the state’s ability to protect senior citizens living in institutional care.
Stories from inside shelter homes
The allegations emerging from Thenmala are not isolated, according to people who have worked in or visited old age homes across Kerala.
Padma*, a Thiruvananthapuram native who worked at an old age home in the district two years ago, recalled witnessing troubling incidents involving elderly women.
“That home was run by a trust. I worked there two years ago. Many elderly women told me they had undergone physical abuse at different levels. There were two staff members who used to push them, pinch them, and shout at them,” she said.
She also recalled a disturbing allegation of sexual abuse.
“Once, a woman who was 65 years old told me that one of the staff members had sexually abused her. Later she left the facility. She told me that some other inmates had also faced the same issue but were ashamed to talk about it. Later I also quit the job.”
A nurse from Kollam district who had visited an old age home to administer injections to inmates described similar complaints.
“I have gone there twice. During my second visit, two women who were over 65 told me that they had been groped by a person who works in the kitchen. They were so ashamed to talk about it when I asked them to give a police complaint,” she said, on the condition of anonymity.
While these accounts cannot independently establish wrongdoing in those institutions, together they point to a recurring pattern – elderly people often remaining silent about abuse because of shame, fear, dependence, or lack of support systems.
A growing challenge
The concerns raised by the Thenmala case are not unique to Kerala.
A 2024 World Health Organization report noted that abuse of older people remains high in institutional settings such as nursing homes and long-term care facilities.
The report stated that two in three staff members reported committing some form of abuse in the previous year. It also cited a review of recent studies showing that 64.2% of personnel reported perpetrating some form of abuse in institutional settings during the past year.
For Kerala, where the population is ageing rapidly and where increasing numbers of families rely on institutional care, the implications are significant.
Officials hope that the creation of a separate department will strengthen oversight.
“Now since a separate Elderly Welfare Department is coming, we expect things would change,” the Social Justice Department officer said.
* Name changed
