Patna: Investigations into mysterious death of two girl inmates lodged at a shelter home in Patna led officials to another sex scandal in Bihar. The police have arrested two officials of the non-governmental organisation (NGO) running the government-funded shelter home, including Manisha Dayal, treasurer, and Chirantan Kumar, secretary.
The alleged sexual abuse of inmates going on within the care home got exposed when a girl revealed in her recorded statement to the court as to how they were sexually tortured at the shelter home.
“The girls inmates lodged at the shelter home were being routinely molested but the NGO official didn’t take notice of our complaints. Instead, we were badly assaulted and denied food whenever we complained about this,” a girl inmate from Gopalganj district reportedly said in her written statement to the court of sub-divisional judicial magistrate, Patna on Monday evening.
There were around 75 women staying at this shelter home being run by the Anumaya Human Research Foundation in the Rajiv Nagar locality of Patna. Of them, 58 were aged between 20 and 40 years. Doctors who checked them said most of them were suffering from anaemia and malnutrition apparently due to denial of adequate food.
Neighbours and local residents too have narrated horrible tales to the police about what were going on at the shelter home. “We often saw luxury vehicles parked outside the shelter homes during late hours. Many a time we saw the shelter home inmates being taken away in cars late at night and getting dropped back in the wee hours,” a local resident was quoted as telling the police.
Another resident said they would hear screams of the inmates at night, adding the NGO officials often kept the inmates away from locals and never allowed them to mingle.
The main opposition, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) has demanded a Central Bureau Investigation (CBI) probe into the incident. “The Patna shelter home seems to be a den of organised sex racket. Neighbours say luxuries cars would come to take destitute girls at the dead of night,” RJD leader Tejahsiw Yadav alleged, charging the chief minister with forgetting the duty of a ruler towards the state in his bid to cling on to power. He asked the chief minister to resign over the issue and set an example before the society.
The fresh incident comes barely days after as many as 34 girl inmates were allegedly raped at another shelter home running at Muzaffarpur town in Bihar, leading to a CBI investigation. This shelter home too was being run by an NGO funded by the state government.
In another related development, the police have arrested a senior official for allegedly sexually exploiting the girls lodged at a shelter home in Vaishali district. The official identified as Manmohan Prasad Singh was posted as the district project manager and was arrested late Monday evening following complaints by the inmates.
According to complaints by victims, the official would routinely reach the shelter home to check on them and would sexually abuse them. “He (the official) would straightway enter our rooms and ask us to massage his body during which he would molest us,” a victim girl told the local media today. According to her, once he had torn off the clothes of a girl when they protested his sexual advances.
“We have arrested the official and the further investigation is on,” a local police official Om Prakash said.
