A special court here on Tuesday sentenced Brajesh Thakur and 11 others, including three women, to life imprisonment for the sexual and physical assault of the girl inmates of a Muzaffarpur shelter home in Bihar.
Additional Sessions Judge Saurabh Kulshreshtha also imposed a fine of Rs. 32 lakh on Thakur.
Six others were sentenced up to seven years in jail. Rosy Rani, who was sentenced to six months' imprisonment, has already served the term. Therefore, she has been released.
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In its 1,546-page judgment, the court had earlier held Thakur guilty for aggravated penetrative sexual assault under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, gang rape, rape and other relevant provisions under the Indian Penal Code and the Juvenile Justice Act.
Vijay Kumar Tiwari, Guddu Patel, Ramanuj Thakur and Kishan Kumar were also convicted of aggravated penetrative sexual assault, rape, gang rape and other related offences. One accused, Vicky, was acquitted.
Among those convicted were Dillip Kumar Verma, then chairman of the Child Welfare Committee in Muzaffarpur, its then member Vikas Kumar and Child Protection Officer Ravi Roshan. Two others, Rama Shankar Singh and Ashwani, were convicted of criminal conspiracy and abetting rape.
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Thakur's accomplice Shaista Praveen, Indu Kumari, Manju Devi, Minu Devi, Chanda Devi, Hema Masih, Neha Kumari and Kiran Kumari were also found guilty of abetting rape and allied offences.
The shelter home, where the inmates were sexually and physically assaulted, was run by a non-government organisation, “Sewa Sankalp Evam Vikas Samiti”.
Following a Supreme Court directive in 2018, after a research team of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences published its findings on instances of sexual assault at shelter homes, the CBI took over the probe.
The CBI had recorded testimonies of the victims and witnesses and lifted forensic evidence from the shelter home. It then filed a charge sheet, on the basis of which the court framed charges on March 30 last.