Rape survivors from Muzaffarpur's Balika Grih shelter home

PATNA: A Bihar shelter home has turned into a house of horror as the survivors give testimonies of being drugged, starved and raped night after night. Girls between the ages of 7-18, many suffering from speech-impairment, have alleged that they were fed food mixed with sedatives, made to sleep naked and beaten mercilessly at the slightest sign of protest. The number of girls who have been raped went up to 34 on Saturday, according to recent medical reports.

"Sedatives were mixed in my food due to which I used to feel dizzy. I was asked by the aunties to sleep in Brajesh sir's room and they used to talk about some visitor coming there. I used to find my pant thrown on the floor when I got up in the morning."

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This is a testimony by a 10-year-old inmate of Muzaffarpur 's Balika Grih to the special Pocso court.

The children, mostly orphans or lost, were sent to the shelter home by the police. It was run by NGO Seva Sankalp Evam Samiti, headed by Brajesh Kumar Thakur who is now in judicial custody along with nine members of the staff.

The sedatives were called 'kide ki dawai' or deworming medicine. A victim said, "Aunties used to give me kide ki dawai at night, following which we used to fall asleep. My entire body used to pain in the morning… At times we were kicked on our stomach."

Other girls also testified to the beatings. One girl who worked as a domestic help said that a man with a big potbelly would hit her if she refused to take the 'medicine' while another said that the accused Brajesh used to take her to the office and scratch her private parts. "He used to scratch so badly that it used to lead to cut marks," she told the court.

The survivors also related incidents where boiling water and oil had been thrown on them. In desperation, a survivor spoke about how she and other girls would cut themselves with shards of broken glass on their hands and legs to prevent being forced into "gaanda kaam'' ( sexual abuse ).

The police estimate that 470 girls have been brought to the shelter in the last five years.

Neighbours heard the "deafening" screams of the girls but no one appears to have complained or raised an alarm. Naseema Rashid (name changed), a resident, said the girls were never seen moving around the campus of the shelter home or its rooftop. She added that the girls' quarters had no windows, just ventilators. "Sounds of screaming and yelling were heard frequently from the home. However, I never got the courage to intervene as Brajesh Thakur was a dabbang person (muscleman)," she said.

Another neighbour, Sulekha (name changed) also admitted that she used to hear the girls' screams. "They were scary," she told the police.

The horror may have continued unabated had it not been for a report by a team of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai, which was asked to do an audit of the home and found instances of violence and abuse.

