Inmates claim murder, rapes in Bihar shelter homes

The district administration in Muzaffarpur on Monday made an unsuccessful attempt to exhume the body of a girl who was raped, killed and buried on the campus of the shelter home where she stayed.

The excavation was carried out using an earthmover after one of the inmates, also a rape victim, told the court about the sordid affair going on in Bihar’s shelter homes. The court, after recording the girl’s statement under Section 164 of CrPC, ordered that the body of the missing girl be exhumed.

The Opposition too gunned for Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s scalp and sought a CBI probe into the sexual abuse of several girls in shelter homes in the state.

More than 40 girls are reported to have been sexually assaulted by those running the shelter homes for destitute and socially abandoned women at different places in Bihar. This exploitation, which took place in the past few years, would have remained largely unnoticed had the state government not roped in Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) for a social audit of such centres, including Muzaffarpur and Chapra. “Altogether, 10 persons have been arrested in this connection while one is still evading arrest,” said a police officer.

Two such girls, who were sexually abused earlier but now shifted to Patna, told a local court that one of their inmates was thrashed, raped and killed by the office-bearers of the non-governmental organisation (NGO) Seva Sankalp Evam Vikas Samiti in Muzaffarpur. “Since the statement was made under Section 164 of the CrPC, the court ordered the Muzaffarpur district administration to exhume the body,” said a police officer.

The Muzaffarpur district administration on Monday could not locate any body. “We will try excavation at other places too if the girls indicate,” said senior SP (SSP) of Muzaffarpur, Harpreet Kaur.

Meanwhile, leader of the Opposition Tejashwi Yadav on Monday asked the Nitish Kumar regime to order a CBI probe into the affair.