24 of 42 girls rescued from UP shelter home,18 missing

The women's shelter home in Uttar Pradesh's Deoria town, barely 45 kilometres from UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath's home turf, Gorakhpur, was running even after its license was cancelled by the state government.

Sources said that of the 42 inmates living in the shelter home 24 has been rescued by the police after they raided it on Sunday

UP Minister for Women and Child Development, Reeta Bahuguna Joshi told reporters here on Monday that the license of the NGO Maa Vindhyavasini Sansthan to operate the shelter home was cancelled last year.

Sources also said that there had been complaints of ''wrongdoing'' at the shelter home but the local administration failed to take any action. ''Every time the officials tried to raid the shelter home, the manager Girija Tripathi would threaten to immolate herself and the officials would retreat,'' said a senior official in Deoria.

According to the sources the alleged ''sexual exploitation'' of the inmates, who were in the age group of 15-18, had been going on there for quite some time.

''Didis (sisters) were sent in luxury vehicles at night with boys to places like Gorakhpur..they were given Rs. 500 to 1500...sometimes I also accompanied them....the girls were sent out five to six times in a month,'' a ten-year-old minor, who escaped from the shelter home and reached the cops on Sunday night, revealed.

''The vehicles in which the girls were sent, were parked on the back side of the shelter home,'' she told the police.