19-year-old Pratyusha was rescued by a team of Telangana state child rights commission
On a complaint, a child rights body in Telangana raided a house in Hyderabad on Wednesday morning. What they found inside left them horrified and in tears.
A young girl was washing utensils in tattered clothes. She had welts and injuries all over her body. There were marks of branding and burning and one eye was swollen. On her face, there were deep scars, allegedly the result of bathroom cleanser being rubbed on her skin.
The girl happened to be the daughter of the owner of the house.
Pratyusha, 19, told the team that she had been tortured for a year and a half by her stepmother, Chamundeshwari. She was allegedly beaten with rods and a hammer, starved and forced to do all the housework.
Her father Ramesh, an employee of the state owned telecom company, remained a mute spectator.
A picture of deprivation and torture, the teen can't even walk straight.
Her condition was reported to the Child Rights commission by an "informer," say the police.
Pratyusha's parents got divorced in 2003 when she was seven. She dropped out of school the same year - her family says it was due to trauma.
Mr Ramesh remarried in 2008. Two years later, Pratyusha's mother allegedly committed suicide. She was sent to an orphanage, where she resumed her studies and completed high school. Her father brought her back home two years ago.
Neighbours say they were told that Pratyusha was a difficult girl with behavioural problems. Her stepmother said the same to NDTV.
When asked why Pratyusha was not taken to a doctor, the stepmother tried to defend herself by saying that the teenager was a compulsive liar, and that earlier she had complained of sexual harassment at the orphanage.
''We have lodged eight police cases on her behalf. But now she has put me in trouble,'' Mrs Chamundeshwari complained.
Pratyusha has been taken to hospital. A member of the rescue team, Dr Sai Kumar, told NDTV, "There are definite cuts in the head, come injuries suggest that the head has been banged against a hard object. There are injuries in her back, they are not self-inflicted."