Nearly six months after the Muzaffarpur shelter home rape case, which had sent the country into a deep shock, four women have been reported to be missing from Patna’s Asha Kiran shelter home on Sunday. A case was registered in Pataliputra police station and search operation was underway.
Bihar: Four women found missing from Patna’s Asha Kiran shelter home; Case registered, search operation by the police is underway
— ANI (@ANI) November 11, 2018
Thane in-charge, TN Tiwari confirmed that all the four girls who went missing were minors. One of them was aged twelve, while the rest three were sixteen years old.
The sordid incident of children of shelter homes in Muzaffarpur being sexually abused and tortured came to light in June this year when the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) submitted a report, based on conversations with several girls at the home.
Underage girls residing at the Seva Sankalp Evam Vikas Samiti shelter home had been allegedly raped and tortured by the officials and employees of the shelter home. Most of the girls affected were speech impaired and according to the medical reports, 34 out of 42 inmates were allegedly raped.
The prime accused in the Muzaffarpur rape case, Brijesh Thakur, who had kept media abuzz by confirming that he was set to contest elections on Congress ticket was, however, arrested and last month the Supreme Court directed for shifting him to Patiala prison from Bihar’s Bhagalpur jail.
Recently, Chandrashekhar Verma, the absconding husband of former Bihar social welfare minister Manju Verma who had stepped down following allegations against her husband having links with Brajesh Thakur, the prime accused in the Muzaffarpur shelter home sex abuse case, surrendered before a court.
Seventeen people, including Thakur, have been arrested so far in the case and the agency is on a lookout for five more.