On any normal day, a teenager eating chocolates would be considered a non-event. But not for 15-year-old Sumina, an orphan from Odisha, who the police say, paid for her ‘aberrance’ with her life itself. When she was brought to Bengaluru by a techie couple in June 2024, it was to take care of their toddler son, despite being a child herself. Merely four months later, on September 27, her employer brutally assaulted her and left her to die in their home. The world would learn of her murder only three days later, when her body was found discarded under a bridge in Salem in neighbouring Tamil Nadu. 

The employers – Odisha-native Abinesh Sagu (41) and Ashwini V Patil (37) – took Sumina to Bengaluru from an orphanage in Odisha that was run by Abinesh’s father, Karthi Chandra Sagu. They made her their four-year-old son’s full-time caretaker at their house in Bhoganhalli.

Sumina’s employment was in outright violation of the Juvenile Justice Act (JJ Act) and the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Rules. Not only was she subjected to cruel mistreatment and exploitation as a “child employee”, but her rights as an “adolescent” worker were also denied to her. The orphanage too violated law by sending her away for domestic work.