PATNA: As many as 11 women residing in another shelter home in Bihar’s Muzaffarpur, which was run by ‘Balika Grih’ sex scandal mastermind Brajesh Thakur, have gone missing, prompting police to register an FIR against him and begin a probe.
The missing 11 women had been living at ‘Swadhar Grih,’ a shelter home in Chhoti Kalyani area meant for women separated from their families and destitute women. During an inspection by the district administration’s social welfare unit on March 20, the 11 women were found present at the facility.
“But for after the sexual assaults on the minor girls at Balika Grih came to light in May, an inspection of Swadhar Grih was conducted by the department on June 9, but it was found locked. Now there is no trace of the women residing there,” said Jyoti Kumari, SHO of the women’s police station in Muzaffarpur where the FIR was registered.
Sources said there were at least four children along with the 11 women at Swadhar Grih. “Thakur’s NGO Sewa Sankalp Evam Vikas Samiti (SSVS), which has been running this shelter home, has not intimated the social welfare department about the shifting of the women and the children yet,” said an official.
The FIR against Thakur was based on the statement of district welfare unit assistant director Devesh Kumar Sharma, who wrote to the women police station on Monday that 11 women are missing. It was also on Sharma’s statement that the first FIR on May 31 was lodged at the women’s police station in the matter of the sexual assaults on 42 minor girls residing at Balika Grih.
SSVS has been running the Swadhar Grih, Balika Grih and a few other shelter homes in Muzaffarpur for the past several years with funds provided by the Bihar government. Thakur and nine others were arrested on June 2 and they are in jail since. The NGO was blacklisted by the government last week.
Medical examinations on the minor girls residing at Balika Grih have confirmed that 34 of them had been subjected to frequent sexual and physical violence by Thakur and the NGO’s staffers. The girls, in their statements to police and before a judicial magistrate, have described horrific sexual assaults on them on regular basis, often after being given sedatives, by men brought from outside at the behest of the NGO’s staffers.
CBI took over the case on July 29 on the recommendation of the state government. A 12-member team of CBI officials is camping in Muzaffarpur and gathering preliminary details on the case from police officials.