The Madhya Pradesh Police have registered a first information report against a private institution in Indore after the state Child Welfare Committee alleged that children living there were being tortured and abused, reported The Indian Express on Friday.

A team from the welfare committee conducted a surprise inspection at the institution last week. After this, they told the police that children were being “subjected to torture like burning with hot tongs and inhaling red chilli smoke”.

Pallavi Porwal, the committee’s chairperson, said that some people who had celebrated their birthdays with the children of the facility had alleged on social media that they were abused.

To follow up on the allegations, the committee formed a team on the orders of the district collector. According to Porwal, the team found burn marks on two children.

“One child told us that she was starved as punishment for a day,” Porwal told The Indian Express. “They have been shifted to another facility.”

Sangeeta Chaudhary, a member of the committee, said that while 25 girls were registered at the institution, 21 were present on the day of the inspection.

“Of the 21, only three belong to Madhya Pradesh while the others are from Gujarat, Odisha, Maharashtra and Rajasthan,” she said. “There was no security at the gates, no visitors’ register. The facility officials claimed they are an orphanage. But later, the parents of the children turned up.”

According to the police, the institution, being run by the Vatsalyapuram Jain Trust, is also not registered under the Juvenile Justice Act, reported NDTV. The trust runs 13 such institutions across the country, including in Bengaluru, Surat, Jodhpur and Kolkata.

Meanwhile, the trust has moved the Madhya Pradesh High Court, alleging that the action of the state authorities was “illegal, horrifying and traumatising [to] the minor children”.

The petition alleged that “the respondents have illegally kidnapped 21 minor girl children from the lawful custody of the petitioner and have further detained them illegally”.

“The petitioner admits the girl children only on the request of their parents or legal guardians, in respect of which the petitioner society maintains complete documentation and record, including the consent form from the parents or legal guardians of the child concerned,” it claimed.

In a hearing on the matter, the father of two children aged 10 and seven had told the High Court that he was “completely satisfied with the care and services of the petitioner”.

“After going through the management and facilities of the hostel, the applicant [father] has handed over the physical custody of his daughters trusting the petitioner that in the best interest of his daughters, the petitioner shall take care of their education, food, safety, well-being, security, etc,” the father told the court.

He also said that “his daughters never had any complaint or inconvenience from the petitioner” and were “happy and satisfied with the services rendered by the petitioner”.