Cuttack: The four-year-old girl, who had allegedly been tortured by her aunt, expressed her reluctance to go with her parents apprehending further thrashing.

Announcing this, the Child Welfare Committee (Cuttack unit) chairman Bikash Mohapatra said: "We have decided not to restore the girl to her parents taking into consideration the best interest of the child by invoking the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015."

On receiving a complaint, the committee and Childline on Tuesday rescued the girl from a house at Sector 11 of Markatnagar, where she was staying with her aunt.

Mohapatra said the complainant, who does not want to be named, had informed that the woman used to thrash the girl regularly. The complaint was supported by video footage evidence.

He said the girl has undergone medical examination at Sishu Bhavan and is staying at the Child Care Institution of Vasundhara.

The committee had registered a case under Section 75 of the act and summoned her parents to appear before it. The girl's 40-year-old father, who worked as a plumber in New Delhi, on Friday appeared before the committee, along with his wife, and filed an application to take back their daughter.

"We decided to keep the girl in the custody of Childline, but permitted visiting rights to her parents," Mohapatra said.

The girl's parents turned up at CDA phase II police station on Thursday after being summoned in connection with the case.

On Friday, inspector-in-charge Dilip Kumar Swain said the girl's father had, in his statement, expressed no concern while being apprised of his daughter's plight in the hands of his sister.

"Instead, her father said his sister must have done it to discipline his daughter," Swain said.

Acting on a complaint by Childline co-ordinator Narayan Shukla, the police arrested the woman.

The plumber, his wife, son and daughter had come to Cuttack nine months ago. While returning back to New Delhi, they had left behind the girl with his sister. As they had planned to shift back to Cuttack, the girl's parents had left her in the city, so that she could be admitted in an Odia medium school before they returned, the police said.