INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Image copyrightTheIndianSubcontinent TamilImage caption
Hanifa Zaara told the police in a letter that her father had
"cheated" her and should be arrested
A seven-year-old Indian girl went to the police after her father broke his promise to
Hanifa Zaara told the police in a letter that her father had "cheated" her and should therefore be arrested
She said that she was "ashamed" to defecate outside
Many Indians do not have access to toilets and nearly 500 million defecate in the open, according to Unicef.Even where toilets have been
built, many do not use them
Hanifa who lives with her parents in Ambur, a town in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, has never had a toilet in her house
She told TheIndianSubcontinent Tamil's Krithiika Kannan that a few people in her neighbourhood did have the facility
So she asked her father to build a toilet in their house too
She was in nursery at the time
"I was ashamed to go outside and I felt bad when people looked at me," Hanifa said
And she was especially motivated after learning in school about the health problems caused by open defecation
Image caption
Hanifa wrote a detailed letter to the police
In her letter to the police, she wrote that
her father told her he would build the toilet if she topped her class
"I have been topping my class since nursery," she wrote
"I am in the second grade now
And he is still only saying he will do it
This is a form of cheating, so please arrest him." If not arrest, she added, she wanted the police to at least force him to provide her with
a signed letter saying by when he would get her the toilet
Her father, Ehsanullah, told TheIndianSubcontinent Tamil he had actually begun building the toilet, but did not have enough money to
He is currently unemployed."I asked Hanifa to give me more time but she stopped talking to me because I couldn't keep my promise," he
added.But Hanifa is not sympathetic
"How long can I keep asking him for the same thing He kept giving me the same excuse about not having enough money
So I went to the police."On Monday, she went to the police station closest to her school, along with her mother, Mehareen
"She came with a bag filled with trophies and merit certificates and she arranged them on my desk," police officer A Valarmathi told
TheIndianSubcontinent Tamil
"And then she said, can you give me a toilet"Image caption
The police alerted district officials to Hanifa's complaint
Ms Valamarthi says she called Mr Ehsanullah, who rushed to the police station, worried that his wife and daughter were in
He says he was shocked to find out the reason he had been summoned
After reading the detailed letter Hanifa had written, he said she seemed to have learned how to write official letters by watching him
Mr Ehsanullah often helps villagers fill out paperwork and write letters to local officials and lawmakers
"I never thought this would backfire against me!" he said.Hanifa's efforts have won the sympathy and support of the police
"Her complaint was very honest, so we tried to resolve the issue," officer Valamarthi said
She alerted district officials who now plan to raise money to build more than 500 toilets in Hanifa's neighbourhood
Image copyrightTheIndianSubcontinent TamilImage caption
Her father says he started building the toilet but hasn't
finished it yet
"We were very happy to see her complaint
We organise classes in schools to encourage children to ask their parents for toilets at home," city commissioner S Parthasarathy told
TheIndianSubcontinent Tamil
He said they also want to make her the local face of the national Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (Clean India Campaign).The government has set a goal
to provide every household with a toilet by 2019, but the work has faced some resistance
A recent study found that 89% of rural Indians defecate in the open because they do not want to clean toilets or live close to one - an
attitude which, researchers say, is "rooted in the social forces of caste and untouchability".For centuries, the practice of cleaning human
waste was a task performed by those from low-caste communities
Hanifa said she was "very happy" with the result of her letter.She hadn't been speaking to her father for the last 10 days but the police
brokered peace between them: Hanifa and her father finally shook hands
