Bengaluru | Bengaluru Police Commissioner Seemant Kumar Singh on Tuesday defended the arrest of Sujatha, the whistleblower in the alleged abuse of toddlers at a daycare centre inside an IT firm’s campus here, saying investigators had found “enough evidence” to make her an accused in the case.

He said the evidence collected so far indicated that she was “also an equal party to the crime”.

The whistleblower, Sujatha, a former caregiver at the daycare centre on the Capgemini campus in the city’s Brookefield area, was arrested on Saturday in connection with the alleged physical abuse and torture of toddlers.

She is the second person to be arrested in the case after caregiver Vijayalakshmi, police said.

Speaking to reporters, Singh said the investigation had established that “something has gone wrong at the daycare centre, 100 per cent. To what extent it went wrong, we are verifying.”

Responding to criticism over the arrest of the whistleblower, the police commissioner said there was “enough evidence” against her.

He said legal procedures mandated under laws relating to juveniles were not followed after the incidents came to light, adding that there had been a delay of several days in reporting the recorded evidence to the authorities.

Singh further said investigators had also found evidence suggesting that one of the alleged incidents had been “stage-managed”.

These aspects had been corroborated during the investigation, he said, while declining to reveal further details as the probe was still under way.

While acknowledging that Sujatha may have acted as a whistleblower, Singh maintained that the evidence collected so far indicated that she was “also an equal party to the crime”.

Police said the videos showed children crying and being subjected to physical abuse and torture by the caregivers.

According to police, the purported videos showed caregivers threatening toddlers aged between two and three when they cried or caused a disturbance.

The complaint alleged that the women put children inside a front-loading washing machine, made them sit on a western-style toilet, sprayed water into their mouths using a toilet jet spray, locked them inside bathrooms, and threatened them into keeping quiet.