SAGAMIHARA, Kanagawa – The suspect in a mass killing Tuesday at a welfare facility for intellectually disabled people in Sagamihara, Kanagawa Prefecture, suddenly changed his attitude toward the facility’s staff and residents beginning around February, according to the director of the facility, where the suspect used to work.

Satoshi Uematsu, 26, was arrested on suspicion of fatally stabbing 19 people and injuring 26 at the Tsukui Yamayuri-en facility.

The facility’s director said at a press conference Wednesday that Uematsu began making a series of prejudiced remarks, such as, “[Disabled people] should die.” The press conference, held by director Kaoru Irikura, 59, and others who belong to Kanagawa Kyodo-kai, a social welfare corporation that operates the facility, was the first since the incident occurred.

It was also learned that five of the eight workers on the night shift when the incident occurred were tied up with zip ties, while two others did not encounter Uematsu and one fled from the site.

According to those at the press conference, Uematsu began making strange remarks as he was talking with his boss and colleagues around February, saying for example, “It’s better all the disabled disappear.” Uematsu then voluntarily quit his job on Feb. 19.

“He hadn’t made such ideological remarks before then. I got an impression that he suddenly had changed,” the director said.

According to investigative sources, the suspect bound to guardrails in the corridors the fingers and arms of two of the five facility workers who were tied with zip ties, and left them incapable of moving. The two who did not cross paths with Uematsu were in areas the suspect did not go during his attack.

The Kanagawa prefectural police searched Uematsu’s house on Wednesday. They seized part of a plant leaf in a small bag and will check the leaf, suspecting it is a kind of cannabis, the sources said. They also conducted mandatory urine collection on Uematsu based on a warrant issued by a court to see if the suspect was using cannabis.

Uematsu was quoted as telling police after the arrest that he had not used any cannabis. He gave a urine sample to be tested for stimulant and narcotic drugs, but he did not want a urine sample to be tested for cannabis.

He was confirmed positive for cannabis use in a urine test in February when he was ordered to be hospitalised as an emergency measure.

Meanwhile, the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry intends to start discussing ways to expand support for those who leave care after compulsory hospitalisation, according to sources. This comes in response to the recent mass murder in Kanagawa Prefecture, in which the suspect had earlier been released from compulsory hospitalisation. The ministry plans to seek advice from experts in its discussions on the issue.

Under the law on mental health and welfare, prefectural governors and mayors of government-designated cities have the authority to hospitalise – without patients’ consent – those who are diagnosed by appointed doctors as being in danger of harming themselves or other people. When patients are diagnosed as no longer posing a threat to themselves or other people, the governors and mayors can decide to lift the hospitalisation order.

Uematsu was under compulsory hospitalisation in February and was discharged in March.

CHENNAI – D hanalakshmi was 14 and pregnant when she was rescued from a children’s home in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu.

She had been entrusted in the care of the unregistered institution by her mother, a ragpicker who could no longer afford another mouth to feed.

But instead of receiving protection, the teenager was raped for months by staff in the home, according to a report by a committee set up by the local social welfare department to investigate the matter.

“Her story blew the lid off something we have known for a long time,” said Zaheeruddin Mohammad, a member of the committee that also fought for the rights of the girl to be protected.

“Inside unregistered homes, there is rampant abuse and little care for the needs of a child.”

State authorities have closed 500 homes since 2011, citing mismanagement, a lack of registration and misconduct but human rights groups say abuse is rife across the 1,500 government and state institutions in the state.

Rights groups have long complained that children’s homes in India are poorly regulated, not inspected often enough, and that many privately-run institutions are able to operate without a licence leaving thousands of children open to mistreatment.

The scope of the problem was outlined in a petition filed in Chennai’s High Court by A. Narayanan, the director of advocacy group CHANGEindia.

“Not a week passes without news of neglect, physical violence such as torture and branding with iron, sexual abuse including rape, murder and suicides in child care homes in Tamil Nadu,” the affidavit said.

“PULL OF GOOD EDUCATION”

Child rights campaigners estimate that 200,000 children in Tamil Nadu are residents of private orphanages, state-supported care homes, Islamic madrassas, temples and hostels.

Many children are not orphans but placed in institutional care by their parents too poor to feed, clothe and shelter them.

“An increasing number of these children are from marginalised families,” CHANGEindia’s Narayanan told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

“The parents are lured by the pull of good education and promise of better care for their children.

They are relying on institutional care.” Various reports submitted to the government in the past five years have warned of shoddy conditions in children’s homes – from poor lighting and cramped accommodation to violence.

In the majority of reported cases, the perpetrators of abuse have been wardens, watchmen, cooks and other staff.

Tamil Nadu government officials have said in court that they were looking at the recommendations made by campaigners, which include better monitoring of homes, individual child care plans, more counsellors and encouraging the idea of foster care.

In one of the latest closures, state authorities shut down after another privately-run institution housing 32 children near the port city of Chennai last month after complaints of mismanagement.

“These organisations have become organised rackets,” Narayanan said.

“There are many organisations which have a valid registration but no child care plan, no counsellors and no expertise on how to fulfil a child’s emotional needs.”

MISREPRESENTED

Children rescued in a separate operation on June 30, from an institution in Tambaram, near Chennai, described being made to clean toilets and eat “unpalatable” food, according to R.N. Manikandan, chairman of a local child welfare committee.

He also said the children shared the same space as residents of a nursing home run by the same organisation, which also caused concern.

Child welfare committee members also raised questions about the babies they found in the premises during an earlier inspection, who are now missing.

According to Narayanan’s affidavit, many children from poor families were shown as destitute orphans in the records and”paraded” before potential adoptive parents and donors funding these homes.

In December, an unregistered home in Tiruchy was taken over by the social welfare department after a court directive.

The home had 90 children in its custody but no records with any government agency.

A wave of claims by people saying they were the children’s parents prompted a local court to rule that all the children should undergo DNA testing to establish their real families.

“Not all children in these homes are in need of the care they promise,” said Andrew Sesuraj, a director at the Tamil Nadu Child Rights Observatory.

He said there was no need for so many homes.

“Foster care or support for the families to enable them to send their children to school is what is required.”