india

Updated: Jul 26, 2018 10:38 IST

The wife of an official arrested on charges of sexually assaulting inmates of a short-stay home in Muzaffarpur has accused the husband of state social welfare department minister Kumari Manju Verma of frequently visiting the institution and spending “long hours in the girls’ room”.

“My husband has been framed. It was the minister’s husband who would often visit the shelter with department officials. He would make them sit on the ground floor and spend hours with the girls upstairs,” Shiva Kumari Singh, wife of child protection officer (CPO) Ravi Kumar Raushan, told mediapersons on Wednesday.

The minister rejected the allegations against her husband, Chandeshwar Verma, stating that the Opposition was indulging in “petty politics” to tarnish her image. “Those people (referring to RJD chief Lalu Prasad’s family) who are neck-deep in corruption and unfair practices are trying to malign others,” Kumari Manju said, reiterating that it was her department that had detected the scandal and booked the culprits.

Incidentally, the girls had told judicial and police officers in a statement that a “pet-wale netaji (a potbellied politician)” and a “mooch-wale uncle (a mustachioed man)” used to drop by frequently to sexually abuse them.

Chandeshwar denied the allegation in an interview with a television channel, stating that he had visited the short stay home only once in the last two years – and that too after his wife became the minister of that department.

Shiva Kumari maintained that her husband would visit the short-stay home only for inspection purposes, and was always accompanied by colleagues. “He is being falsely implicated in the case by people with vested interests,” she told reporters. “I have evidence to show that police are protecting the big fish.”

She has requested chief minister Nitish Kumar to recommend a CBI probe into the case, so that only the guilty are punished. Tourism minister Pramod Kumar also asked the director general of police to investigate the case properly.