Child branded at Sugar Land temple sparks legal battle seeking over $1 million
SUGAR LAND, Texas - Houston mother Supriya Raman Sripada was charged with injury to a child with bodily injury after a bizarre burning incident with her 11-year-old son, but then she was no-billed by a grand jury.
The boy’s father says he is outraged after he says his young son was left disfigured, suffered severe burns and infection when the boy was branded at a Hindu temple in Sugar Land.
(Photo: Abraham, Watkins, Nichols, Agosto, Aziz & Stogner)
The 11-year-old was burned at the Sri Ashtalakshmi Temple in what someone at the temple told me was a "branding ritual," but the little boy’s father calls it an illegal mutilation.
"They were up here on his shoulders," the 11-year-old’s father Vijay Cheruvu explained as he gestured to the front of his shoulders, pointing out the area of the two brands that were burned into his son.
"I was shocked," says Cheruvu.
A representative for the temple told FOX 26 the brandings are part of a "ritual."
"It doesn’t matter what your religion is, you don’t get to burn children," says one of Cheruvu’s attorneys Brant Stogner.
Co-counsel Jen Stogner adds, "They told this little boy to hide it. They told him don’t say anything. Make sure you keep it covered."
"He started crying. Then he came out and told me the whole story, and I’m like you kept this hidden this long. This is so traumatic. I was traumatized. I couldn’t do anything to protect my son," Cheruvu says while choking back tears.
Cheruvu says he has shared custody. He says his ex-wife took their sixth grader to the temple where the mom did not receive a brand, but 94 adults and three children did, which Cheruvu’s attorney says is against the law.
"Under Texas law, both statutory and common law, a child cannot consent to being burned or scarred. A child’s mother cannot consent for her son or her daughter to be burned or scarred," Brant Stogner explains.
Cheruvu has filed a lawsuit against Sri Ashtalakshmi Temple and Jet USA, saying the branding irons left his son with third degree burns, serious infection, and permanently disfigured.
"He goes to see a therapist. He’s so deeply scarred, mentally scarred, and then there’s all the pain," says Cheruvu.
When the 11-year-old was asked how he feels about what happened to him, "He says sad, mad, scared, and then he says desperate, depressed, frustrated and stressed," Attorney Andrew Williams says.
Cheruvu is Hindu, but says none of his friends or family have ever been branded, which he says isn’t part of the religion, but shows loyalty to a particular leader.
"This is a traveling guru, and he probably goes all over the place doing this, goes to different temples doing this," says Mr. Stogner.
"It’s deep trauma. He doesn’t trust any adults anymore. He doesn’t want to be around many people. Out of the blue, once in a while, he’ll say why did this happen to me? Why didn’t anybody stop this," says the 11-year-old’s dad.
The person FOX 26 spoke with at the temple said they gave complete statements to investigators, and he says he doesn’t have anything further to say to the news media.