Four minor girls were found missing on Sunday from a shelter home in Patna. A case has been registered at the Patliputra police station.
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According to the police, the girls, aged between 12 and 16, are said to have escaped from the Asha Kiran shelter home, located inside a school campus in Patliputra colony on Sunday morning. The State Welfare Department runs the home which is managed by an NGO.
The girls, living on the second floor of the shelter home, are said to have escaped from a window using a dupatta (stole) as rope and jumped over the boundary wall. The police have registered a case and begun searching for the missing minors.“We searched for girls at railway stations, bus station and other prominent locations but they’re yet to be found,” said Patliputra Police station in-charge T.N. Tiwari. The official in-charge of the shelter home did not respond to questions on the incident.
The rape and sexual exploitation of 34 girls at another Bihar shelter home in Muzaffarpur was exposed earlier this year in a report by the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS). Over a dozen persons, including the main accused Brajesh Thakur were later arrested.
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The Supreme Court is monitoring the case Following a court order Brajesh Thakur recently was shifted to Patiala jail in Punjab as, the investigating agency CBI said, he could have “influenced” the case by being in Muzaffarpur jail.
The then social welfare minister Manju Verma had to step down from her post and her husband Chandrashekhar Verma was also accused to be in touch with Brajesh Thakur over phone. Mr Verma had to surrender in Arms Act case recently and was sent to Begusarai jail while, the Supreme Court which is monitoring the Muzaffarpur shelter home rape case, has expressed displeasure over Ms Verma not being arrested yet in the case.
Meanwhile, the city municipal commissioner of Muzaffarpur has ordered to demolish illegal construction of the Muzaffarpur shelter home which was running in the building owned by the main accused Brajesh Thakur.