PATNA: Brajesh Thakur, the main accused in the Muzaffarpur shelter home scandal in Bihar, on Wednesday claimed he was innocent and alleged that he was framed in the case because he was set to join Congress and contest polls on a party ticket.
“I was thinking of joining the Congress. Talks were at the final stage for my contesting from Muzaffarpur on a Congress ticket. Some people are targeting me because of this,” Thakur, 50, told reporters while being presented in court.
He did not specify whether it was next year’s Lok Sabha polls or the Assembly polls in Bihar slated for 2020.
Congress leaders rubbished his claim.
“He is parroting a script written by BJP and JD(U). His links with these two parties are already in the public domain. The Congress has no links with him,” said state Congress chief Kaukab Quadri. Thakur, owner of the NGO that was running the shelter home where the inmates were raped and tortured, admitted to speaking to Chandeshwar Verma, husband of social welfare minister Manju Verma, but claimed he was not close to him.
Denying his involvement in the sexual abuse of minor girls, Thakur said: “Not even a single girl of the shelter home named me before police as their tormentor.”
He was smeared with black paint by a woman while being taken to court. He urged the court to save him from the mob or else he would be lynched”.