PATNA: Bihar social welfare minister Manju Verma, whose husband is accused of often entering the Muzaffarpur shelter home for minor girls without anyone accompanying him, on Saturday strongly defended him and said she would hang him at a public square if he is found guilty in the sex scandal.
“Some people are busy levelling baseless charges against me and my husband with ulterior, political motives. My husband has absolutely no role in what has happened… If he is found guilty, I will have no qualms in hanging him at a public square,” said the minister at a programme in Begusarai.
Shiva Kumari, wife of the arrested Muzaffarpur district child protection officer Ravi Kumar Raushan, had alleged that Verma’s husband, Chandeshwar Verma, a former MLC, had often been entering into the rooms of the minor girls at the shelter home without anyone accompanying him. Kumari had alleged that Raushan was framed in the case by officials of the social welfare department for not toeing their line after the shelter home sex scandal surfaced.
Ever since Chandeshwar Verma’s name surfaced in the case, the Opposition parties have been demanding Manju Verma’s removal from the state cabinet and the arrest of her husband. The minister has, however, claimed her husband’s innocence and insisted that she, as the minister, had approved the social audit of Bihar’s shelter homes by Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), which first brought out the sexual and physical violence endured by the inmates.
The minister’s security personnel had manhandled journalists in Patna on Friday when they approached her for comments on the charges levelled against her husband. After emerging from a public programme, she refused to take any questions from the journalists and got into her car.
Bihar deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi has defended Manju Verma, saying there is neither any evidence of her involvement in the Muzaffarpur shelter home sex scandal nor had she protected any of the people accused of wrongdoing.
As many as ten people, including the head of the NGO running the shelter home, Brajesh Thakur, were arrested in the case in June while one accused is on the run. Buckling under pressure from the Opposition, CM Nitish Kumar ordered a CBI probe on July 26.