Mam Shah

Bhubaneswar, Aug. 18: Questions regarding the identity of a teenage boy, recently thrown out of a women’s remand home where he stayed for 10 days posing as a married woman, has thrown railway police off guard.

The case of Mam Shah, 15, who was briefly put behind bars and is now in the “custody” of Bolangir railway police, has managed to baffle the force that can’t fathom what to do with him.

The boy, however, wishes to launch himself as a Bollywood “item girl”. “I will undergo a sex change operation and will be accepted as a woman,” Shah says with a determined expression.

The Bolangir government railway police “rescued” the boy from the railway station on July 28 when he was spotted by the personnel loitering around.

“He was dressed up like a girl, so we took him to Swadhar, a shelter home for women,” said R.N. Bal, an officer.

The teen stayed at Swadhar for 10 days until inmates started to suspect that something was amiss. “We were told that he did not use the toilet when there were others around. If somebody asked him why, he reacted violently,” said Bal.

The suspicions got so intense that it was brought to the notice of the police who arrested him last Tuesday and sent him for a medical examination at the district headquarters hospital.

Doctors confirmed that Shah wasn’t a eunuch, neither an MSM.

“He, however, shows symptoms of a condition called F64.0 — a state where a person starts believing that he or she is from the opposite sex,” said psychiatrist R.P. Satpathy.

The police, so far, has failed to gather details about the boy and Shah, too, does not seem too eager to talk.

“He might very well be lying about everything that he told us about him so far, but it’s difficult to conclude anything,” said Bal.

The GRP has been bearing medical expenses of Shah’s tests, but the police is eager to hand the case over to NGOs and organisations who “specialise” in such cases.

“However, no one has offered to help. In the worst case scenario, the GRP will be going ahead with medical tests at SCB Medical College and Hospital at Cuttack to identify his disorder,” said Satpathy.