To find buried body, police dig up Bihar shelter home where over 30 girls were allegedly raped

india

Updated: Jul 23, 2018 22:46 IST

Police in Bihar’s Muzaffarpur started to dig up the compound of a state-funded shelter home, where over 30 girls were allegedly raped by its staff and other government officials for months, over allegations that an inmate was killed and buried in the premises.

According to news agency ANI, the excavation is being carried out in the presence of executive magistrate (eastern) Priya Rani Gupta and senior police officials.

The police action comes after one of the inmates said in her statement that one of them was allegedly beaten to death and buried in the campus following an argument with the staff of the home.

Rashtriya Janata Dal leader and former deputy chief minister of Bihar, Tejashwi Yadav, accused the Nitish Kumar-led state government of shielding the culprits in the case that has triggered outrage.

“Think? How would you feel if your family and the village’s seven to 17-year-old sisters or daughters, supported and sponsored devils, were raped her for months? There is a flood of rape in Bihar and the government is silent. They just care about their power!” Yadav tweeted in Hindi.

At least 11 people, including some government officials, have been arrested in connection with the alleged sexual abuse of the girls at the non-government organisation Seva Sankalp Evam Vikas Samiti on Sahu Road in Muzaffarpur.

Reports of repeated sexual abuse of inmates at the short stay home in Muzaffarpur surfaced in the wake of a social audit by Mumbai’s Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS).

The institute had carried out a social audit of shelter homes running across Bihar and alleged abuse of inmates in its report to the state government.

Police have said they are all set to file a chargesheet against 11 accused soon.

“We are giving final touches to the chargesheet in the case of sexual exploitation of 32 out of 44 girls, aged between 7 and 16 years, as per their medical reports and with whatever evidence we have collected so far. We are working to file it before the court concerned within a week,” a police official said on Friday.

“If we come across some more evidence at a later stage, we will file a supplementary chargesheet,” the official said.

The girls at the shelter home had undergone medical examination twice to ascertain the facts, police sources said

Officials said there was an urgent need to tighten the investigation as the medical report was vague and subject to interpretation in the court. Instead of making specific statements, the medical board has noted that “the possibility of sexual contact cannot be ruled out”, they said.

Muzaffarpur SSP Harpreet Kaur, however, said police were hardly bothered about the outcome of medical board report and would go by the statements of the victims in the court.

“Police are awaiting medical reports of the rest of the eight inmates,” she said.

A 23-year-old hearing impaired inmate of short stay home in Chapra being run by a non-government organisation, Nari Utthan Kendra, was found pregnant earlier this month.