Santosh Singh

Two women inmates, aged 40 and 17, of a shelter home at Rajiv Nagar, were reportedly brought dead to Patna Medical College and Hospital (PMCH) on Friday.

The CBI team led by SP JP Mishra opened all the rooms of the shelter home. CBI sources said the team might conduct fresh digging at the foreground of the shelter.

The principal secretary wanted all schools to purchase the loudspeakers by Friday. Most schools, however, have either not received the order or have not been able to purchase loudspeakers.

Harivansh Narayan Singh is the first JD(U) man to be picked up by the BJP dispensation for a job at the Centre in the backdrop of a long-held grouse of Nitish that even while he had given a full representation to the BJP in his government, the other side had not reciprocated it at the Centre.

These decisions come a week after the Muzaffarpur case was handed over to the CBI, and three days after Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said the the incident has shamed his government.

The story of Brajesh Thakur, newspaper owner, local power broker and the man who ran the shelter where 34 girls, most of them children, were allegedly sexually assaulted. The Indian Express investigates the man and his networks.

Over the four years of its existence, the shelter home in Bihar, like most government-run shelters in the state, was inspected by multiple bodies, but none flagged the “highly questionable manner” in which it was being run or that “several girls (had) reported about violence and being abused sexually”.

Medical examination of the inmates confirmed sexual exploitation in the case of 29 of the 44 girls. The police registered a case against 11 people including Brajesh Thakur and Madhu Kumari on May 31. All 44 girls have since been shifted to short-stay homes in Madhubani, Patna and Mokama. 

It has emerged that just about 40 days after the shelter home began operations, on March 1, 2017, a top district child protection unit (CPU) officer found out irregularities there and recommended its closure. The department appears to have ignored the alert.

Child Protection Officer said after a case was filed against Brajesh Thakur in the case of alleged sexual exploitation of girls in a Muzaffarpur shelter home, other shelters being run by his NGOs had started functioning erratically.

The daily, Pratah Kamal, would get advertisements worth nearly Rs 30 lakh per year from the Bihar government, sources said.

Documents accessed by The Indian Express show the social welfare department’s Muzaffarpur wing did raise questions about “incompetent staff”, installation of CCTV cameras, and the presence of fewer girls at the shelter than the number of enrolments.

According to official records, Thakur was getting about Rs 1 crore per year, from both the Centre and state government, to run five shelters for girls and women in Muzaffarpur.

In a chapter titled “Grave Concerns”, the report, seen by The Sunday Express, lists specific complaints by inmates. Here are excerpts from the report.

The state government has shown urgency after being warned by the Centre of not being given a fresh target for 2018-19, as the state government was able to construct only 32,000 houses by March 31.

The police have filed a chargesheet against 10 people, who were arrested earlier. They have also initiated a process of declaring Verma a proclaimed offender. The state government has recommended a CBI probe into the matter.

The Muzaffarpur police have arrested 10 people so far, including Ravi Kumar Roshan, the district child protection officer, Brajesh Thakur, caretaker of the short stay home, and Vikas Kumar, a member of the child welfare committee.

His comments come at a time when the din for elevating Kushwaha as NDA’s face in the state for 2019 Lok Sabha and 2020 Assembly polls is growing.

Under attack from Opposition over the case, CM Nitish Kumar Tuesday met state DGP and home secretary in this regard.