As the world observes another AIDS Day, the story of a child from the remote Perur hamlet in Tamil Nadu shows that the battle to create awareness and empathy about the disease has a long way to go. The boy had been crammed into a cloth bag and hung from a tree near the banks of the River Kaveripattinam in Krishnagiri district and left to die — by his father, say those involved in the case. The child was HIV positive.

Villagers found the child and put him under the care of doctors. His maternal grandmother Kanchana has come forward to accept him and is now taking care of him.

Witnesses and local officials told The Indian Express that on November 7, villagers of Kaveripattinam heard a feeble cry which led them, through thorny bushes, to find a child stuffed inside a shopping bag hung from a tree. They informed Dr Hari Ram of the local Community Health Centre, who reached the spot with a constable and a nurse.

“The child’s condition was pathetic. He looked emaciated, so weak, his limbs were so thin. We thought at first he was a six-month-old baby. He was obviously undernourished and there were sores on his body and face,” said Ram. “We named him Siva and placed his age at one year.” (Later, it turned out the child was actually three years old.)

After intensive life-support treatment, Ram handed over the child to Anand Ashram, a nodal agency for adoptions. But on November 12, the Ashram called him to say it was returning the child as he was HIV positive. Ram says he made frantic calls to several NGOs working in the HIV/AIDS field but none responded. Finally, his friend Vel Murugan contacted M Raja, the founder-president of the HIV Positive Society of Dharmapuri district, who had the child admitted to the government hospital there the same night.

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