Even as one of the victims of the Muzaffarpur shelter home sexual abuses remains missing two days after she allegedly fled from a similar facility at Mokama, a probe by police and forensic officials has indicated that the seven girls were allowed to escape apparently in collusion with certain officials.
Four of the seven minor girls who went missing from the government-funded shelter home run by Nazareth Society at Mokama early on Saturday are both victims and witnesses of the Muzaffarpur shelter home scandal, said police sources. Six of these girls were traced and brought back from a village in Darbhanga district late on Saturday evening.
The girl still missing is reportedly a prime witness in the case being probed by CBI. Sources said this girl had “full knowledge about several influential people” linked to the Muzaffarpur scandal and that she had told both Muzaffarpur police and CBI officials about how these people’s activities had turned life for the inmates into hell.
“A through probe was conducted by our (police) IG and several senior officials, including the district magistrate and SSP, along with a forensic team. It appears that the girls had been sent out through the gate in collusion with some officials,” said Bihar DGP Gupteshwar Pandey on Sunday.
Functionaries of Nazareth Society and officials of the state social welfare department had claimed that the girls had escaped by cutting the grill of a window. The DGP said the probe report is being analysed and that it would be sent to the social welfare department shortly.
“This fresh episode seems to be a part of the effort to protect influential, politically connected people who collaborated in the Muzaffarpur scandal for years. The police probe report should be made public and action should be taken,” said Santosh Kumar, a social activist who had filed a PIL at Patna High Court seeking a CBI probe into the Muzaffarpur case.
Opposition leader Tejashwi Yadav of RJD attacked Bihar’s Nitish Kumar-led NDA government. “Who is the person involved in the Muzaffarpur scandal for whose protection the Bihar government is quietly and shamelessly tolerating strictures by various institutions and transferring CBI officials?” he asked in a tweet.
Meanwhile, sources said a police team has left for West Bengal to trace the missing girl, who hails from Dinajpur. “While six of the seven girls had boarded the Patna-Jaynagar Intercity Express train and reached Sakri in Darbhanga district, this girl had caught a separate train heading for West Bengal and was accompanied by a young man,” said a police official.