Udupi: Two women, aged between 30 and 40 and confined to their home for 10 years, were rescued by health workers on a survey assignment, from their house at Shribeedu in Bannanje on Monday.

The women, along with their mother, were admitted to government hospital by Women and Child Welfare Department and Child Development Programme officers with the help of the police.

Though the mother was reluctant to open the door, the officials, with the help of the police, forced their way in, rescuing the women under house arrest for more than 10 years. Vishala and Shashirekha, along with their mother Sulochana, were taken to government hospital at Ajjarkadu.

According to the mother, the family’s poor financial condition forced her to confine her daughters to their house to help protect them. Social worker Jyothi Hebbar said the mother herself seemed to be mentally unstable.

“We had to approach her repeatedly for a week to convince her that we will get her a ration card done. She was reluctant to accept the offer, stating she was self-sufficient, with a shop from Parkala providing necessary grocery items. She said she had an ancestral property and once it was transferred to her name, she would arrange for the marriage of her daughters,” Hebbar said.

The incident came to light when nurses, who had come for a survey, informed the officials concerned. Sulochana hails from Parkala and her husband who died some 10 years ago was from Kinnimulki. While the elder daughter was always locked in the room, being aggressive and violent, the younger one, mild and silent, was confined to her room.

The women’s brother Nandakishore’s classmate and friend Shabarish Shenoy told that their father Seetharam Shettigar was very strict and disciplined. He was working in Sairam Textiles. Even one of his daughters worked in Sairam Textiles for some months. The women attended college at  GM for some years and were brilliant. They mysteriously went missing eight to nine years ago.

Women and Child Welfare Department in-charge Deputy Director Rajendra Bekal said the women were admitted to Dr A V Baliga Hospital by her uncles (mother’s brothers) who gave an undertaking to the Udupi Town police that henceforth, they would take care of their nieces.

Both were discharged from the government hospital in the evening, he added. The police traced the brother Nandakishore who joined the family in the hospital.