A mother who poured hot water on her eight-year-old son on Monday will undergo a psychiatric test, says the Kaduna government.

“The ministry will also use this opportunity to engage the service of psychiatrists to examine this woman and ascertain what may be wrong with her sense of reasoning,” said Commissioner for Human Services and Social Development Hafsat Baba.

She described the incident as sad and promised that the government would get to the root of the matter.

The government on Thursday ordered a psychiatric test for the woman who lives in the Romi area of Kaduna.

The woman allegedly poured the hot water on her son to punish the boy for removing a bolt from her grinding machine and sold it to a scrap buyer at N1,500.

“The woman said this was her way of punishing her child for removing one bolt from her grinding machine and selling it to those people that buy scrap at N1,500. She bathed the child with water she boiled to take her bath after beating him,” stated the commissioner.

Ms Baba added, “At the moment, the child is receiving treatment at a government hospital after being rescued by men of the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps. We are happy he’s responding well to treatment. The woman involved tried to run away, but we were able to arrest her.”

She disclosed that the human rights committee of the Nigerian Bar Association had been contacted “to help the mother and ascertain why she did that.”

“How can you give birth to a child and burn the child with hot water? This is a source of concern to us,” reasoned Ms Baba. “We have not been able to interact with the child because he’s still in pain, but the investigation will let us into why the boy did what he did. Could it be he was hungry? We don’t know yet.”

(NAN)