Inmates at the Meghalaya Institute of Mental Health and Neurological Sciences. A Telegraph picture

Case 1

Name: Thakur Ali. Age: around 50 years. Category: unclaimed patient for more than 30 years. Date of admission not known, Address: not known.

Case 2

Name: Not known. Age: around 45. Category: unknown. Date of admission: Oct. 10, 2007. Address: not known

Case 3

Name: Bishwa Boro. Age: 27 years. Category: woman. Date of admission: May 12, 2003. Address: Tezpur, Assam

Deserted by loved ones, Ali, Boro and the 45-year-old “unknown” are faces of hapless patients at a Shillong mental asylum who have nowhere to go even though doctors vouch for their fitness to return home.

Forgotten by their family, their only refuge now are the walls of the state-run Meghalaya Institute of Mental Health and Neurological Sciences.

Thakur Ali at the institute. A Telegraph picture

Take Ali for instance.

Categorised as an “abandoned” patient, Ali (picture on page 17) is languishing in the institute for more than 30 years, as per the records.

Wearing a dhoti and shirt, he willingly comes forward to answer questions. A man of few words, he nods in the affirmative when asked if he wants to go home.

But with no relatives and friends ever visiting him for more than 30 years, there is little possibility of him being released any time soon.

Ali has forgotten when he was admitted to the institute; neither can he clearly remember where he came from. “I think I was brought from the Cleve Colony locality by some people several years ago,” he says.

“We feel that Ali is in normal condition. But the issue of no one claiming him has compounded his worries,” says psychiatrist A.K. Roy at institute.

“I think for the last 15 years, he has been behaving normally and now he even helps in the kitchen,” Roy adds.

Set up at Mawlai in 1976 to house mental patients, the institute was initially called Mental Jail and was under the home (jails) department of the Meghalaya government.

In 1998, the health department took over the administration and a judgment by the Supreme Court 10 years ago prompted the state government to replace “mental jail” with “mental institute”.

Ali and the other inmates were shifted to the new building of the institute at Lawmali, Pasteur Hills in Polo in May this year.

“Twice, records related to mental patients were gutted by fire at the old building at Mawlai in the middle of 1990, making it extremely difficult to find any information about Ali,” says a hospital employee.

Of the 104 inmates in the hospital now, 18 have officially been declared “abandoned”. And the figure is only expected to rise.

The additional superintendent of the institute, M. Raplang, said according to the Mental Health Act, if a patient is certified by two psychiatrists as cured, he can remain at the institute for three months at the most and within that time relatives must take him home.

On September 7, Raplang even wrote to the director of health services, K.H. Lakiang, seeking his advice on abandoned patients.

“We cannot admit new patients since the abandoned patients stay on,” Raplang says. The abandoned patients’ list on the notice board of the institute includes Khasi, Garo and Bodo men and women.

There are a few who are categorised as “unknown”, as the hospital staff do not even know their names and place of origin.

One patient was called Bahduh (“youngest brother” in Khasi) by hospital staff since nothing was known about him.

Aged around 45, he was brought by police from Mawlai police station on October 10, 2007.

Koin Sangma, 30, who was certified by doctors to be fit and healthy, is blind. Originally from Goalpara district in Assam, he now leads a quiet life at the institute.

Bishwa Boro, 27, from Tezpur in Assam was abandoned by her husband six years ago. “My husband, Dharen Kumar, and I have three children in Tezpur. He has not visited me here even once. I wish to go home, but there is little chance of that now,” Boro laments.