After Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, an orphanage for girls in eastern Assam’s Sivasagar is under the scanner for alleged sexual exploitation of its minor inmates.
On Monday, a rights activist and an NGO filed separate cases of sexual abuse at the local police station against one Parag Goswami, who runs a registered orphanage named Swapnalaya in Joysagar area.
The cases were filed after three girls of the orphanage escaped around 11.30 p.m. on Sunday. Rights activist Farid Islam Hazarika helped them take shelter at a facility of the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited before registering an FIR against the orphanage’s owner and administrator, Geeta Kakati.
Demand for stern action
A civil society organisation called Oikya Mancha too filed an FIR. “The police must take stern action against these as a deterrent for others,” the NGO’s general secretary Rajib Gogoi said.
The three girls said most of the girls at the orphanage were being sexually abused and assaulted for resisting advances. They said a few girls had tried to escape earlier but were taken back to the orphanage and beaten until submission.
“We have asked the district administration and the police to investigate and take action accordingly. We cannot allow children to be exploited and robbed of their childhood,” Pramila Rani Brahma, Assam’s Social Welfare Minister, told The Hindu .
Sivasagar SP Subodh K. Sonowal could not provide the number of girls in the orphanage, but said his officers were probing the case. “We have made no arrests so far,” he said, adding that the police have been tied up with the disappearance of a five-member family whose car fell into the Dikhow river four days ago.
A Navy team that arrived on Monday from Visakhapatnam joined the search operation on Tuesday. The car, presumably with the bodies inside, is yet to be recovered.
