Patna: At least 34 juvenile inmates, many of them facing serious charges like murder, rape and robbery escaped from a remand home in Bihar on Sunday after cutting through the metal windows and gate in what is being described as a major security lapse.
All the inmates were lodged at a remand home in Munger, some 170km east of Patna. The culprits below 18 years of age are kept in remand home, also known as reform centre.
Police said the absconding juvenile delinquents were lodged in separate rooms but on Sunday they came on the veranda of the remand home after finding the security personnel missing and fled the home by cutting through the iron metal window and gate.
Soon after the coming to know of the incident, the police launched a massive manhunt in the areas after which 11 could be nabbed and brought back to the remand home.
“The inmates broke the iron gate and window and fled the remand home. So far, 11 of them have been nabbed whereas massive manhunts are on to trace the remaining inmates,” the local district superintendent of police Ashishs Bharti told the media on Monday.
He said the police had contacted the neighbouring districts to known about the whereabouts. Authorities said a total of 86 inmates were lodge din the remand home.
This is the second time in quick succession that the inmates fled the remand home in Bihar. Earlier in 2015, some 100 inmates fled a similar facility after tying bed-sheets and scaling walls.
About 31,000 offenders below the age of 18 are kept in juvenile homes intended for reforming the delinquents, according to official statistics.
The homes have no armed guards and inmates often sleep in dormitories instead of individual cells, reports said.
