Muzaffarpur shelter home case: CBI looks for graves of victim girls

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has started excavating a grave in Bihar's Muzaffarpur, where, it is suspected, remains of some of the victims of minor girls' abuse case in a shelter home could be buried, officials said here Wednesday. The agency said the excavation site is at Sikandarpur in Muzaffarpur district.

More details may be shared once the excavation is over, they said.

The grave is believed to be located in a burial ground where the agency team reached with an excavator and dug out some human remains, they said.

The agency is likely to carry out DNA tests, and other forensic examination to ascertain the identity of the remains, they said.

Some of the victims in the government-funded shelter home run by Brajesh Thakur's NGO Seva Sankalp Ewam Vikas Samiti (SSEVS) have alleged that some of their fellow inmates were killed and buried after rape, they said.

The local police had carried out digging at the location identified by the girls but could not find anything, they said.

The agency has questioned a close aide of Thakur after which it decided to carry out the excavation process, they said.

Besides Thakur, the agency had taken into custody Rosy Rani, assistant director in the social welfare department, staff members Guddu, Vijay and Santosh.

The agency has frozen 20 bank accounts of Thakur besides any kind of transaction of his movable and immovable properties have been barred, they said.

The Supreme Court had on September 20 vacated a Patna High Court order restraining the media from reporting on the probe into the shelter home case where several minor girls were allegedly raped and sexually abused over a period of time.

The incident came to light after a report from Tata Institute of Social Sciences alleged sexual abuse of about 34 girls at the shelter home following which an FIR was subsequently registered by the Bihar social welfare department and 10 people, including Thakur, were arrested.

Following a huge outcry, the Nitish Kumar government handed over the probe to the CBI.

His social welfare minister Manju Verma had to resign in August after it was disclosed that her husband had spoken to Thakur several times between January and June this year.