Muzaffarpur shelter home girls were forced to dance to vulgar songs, have sex with people

Girls at the Muzaffarpur shelter home in Bihar were drugged and raped in their sleep. Muzaffarpur shelter home owner Brajesh Thakur, along with the help of the shelter home's staff, routinely exploited and abused the girls. This and much more was revealed by the Central Bureau of Investigation in its Muzaffarpur shelter home rape case chargesheet

India Today Web Desk

Patna

January 7, 2019UPDATED: January 7, 2019 18:24 IST

Muzaffarpur shelter home rape case: CBI chargesheet reveals how girls were drugged, raped, murdered

Brajesh Thakur, the prime accused in the Muzaffarpur shelter home rape case

The girls were drugged and raped in their sleep. The girls were tied to chairs and sexually abused. The girls were made to dance to vulgar Bhojpuri songs. The girls were routinely beaten, sometimes with sticks. Some of the girls were murdered. And, all their cries for help fell on deaf ears.

These are some of the horrifying details revealed by the Central Bureau of Investigation with regards to the goings on at Ballika Grih, a shelter home for young girls in Bihar's Muzaffarpur. The girls at the Muzaffarpur shelter home were routinely raped, abused and exploited by the home's owner Brajesh Thakur and his "guests", the CBI's investigation has revealed.

The CBI filed a 73-page chargesheet in the Muzaffarpur shelter home rape case last month. In the chargesheet, the agency has levelled serious allegations of sexual abuse, rape and murder against Brajesh Thakur and several other people, including the "house mothers" who aided and abetted Thakur in the exploitation of the young girls who stayed at the Muzaffarpur shelter home.

According to the CBI's chargesheet, which is based on statements of many of the Muzaffarpur shelter home girls, the girls there were routinely drugged by the institution's staff and were raped in their sleep. The girls were told that the medicine being administered to them were for "de-worming" purposes.

However, the drugs put the girls to sleep and they woke up with body pains, particularly in and around their chest, stomach, abdomen and vagina. One of the Muzaffarpur shelter home girls, identified as V-3 in the CBI chargesheet, told investigators that when she woke up in the morning "her clothes would be off" and "her body would hurt".

What chargesheet reveals

Muzaffarpur shelter home girls were drugged and raped in their sleep. The girls used to wake up their clothes off and with pain all over their bodies

The 'house mothers' used to beat the girls with hot utensils and were primarily responsible for drugging the Muzaffarpur shelter home girls

Muzaffarpur shelter home owner Brajesh Thakur allegedly murdered one of the girls by hitting her on her head. Another girl was allegedly killed by one of the 'house mothers'

The same girl told CBI investigators that Brajesh Thakur and some other accused -- Ravi Roshan, Dilip and Guddu -- would come to the girls' bedrooms at night and make them dance to Bhojpuri songs.

This particular allegation was repeated by a number of other Muzaffarpur shelter home girls as were the allegations that the "house mothers" tasked with looking after the girls were active participants in the horrors that went on at the shelter home.

One of the house mothers -- identified as Kiran -- used to sleep naked with the girls, according to the testimony of one of the victims. Another victim recalled at least one instance when Kiran sexually abused a girl while she was sleeping.

In the chargesheet, the Muzaffarpur shelter home girls say that the house mothers were primarily the ones responsible for sedating the girls following which they were raped and sexually abused by Brajesh Thakur and his fellow accused.

The Muzaffarpur shelter home has been demolished

The chargesheet also talks about instances where girls at the shelter home had been murdered. According to the victims' testimonies, Brajesh Thakur killed a girl by hitting her on the head while Kiran murdered another girl by strangulating her.

Worryingly, the chargesheet also reveals how state government officials who were supposed to inspect shelter homes were not only aware of the goings on at the Muzaffarpur shelter home but were actually involved in the crimes.

The CBI has alleged that Dilip Kumar Verma, who was the chairman of the Muzaffarpur's child welfare committee (CWC) was among those who sexually abused the girls at Brajesh Kumar's shelter home. CWCs are district-level bodies that are supposed to keep tabs on shelter home, look after the well being of shelter home girls and ensure that no illegalities take place at the homes.

Authorities turned blind eye?

The chairman of the district child welfare committee was allegedly among those who sexually abused the Muzaffarpur shelter home girls

Another district official inspected the Muzaffarpur shelter home 11 times but remained mum about the goings on there

The Bihar Police allegedly botched up the probe in the Muzaffarpur shelter home rape case, following which the investigation was taken over by the CBI

Another official -- Rozy Rani who was the assistant director of the district child protection unit -- visited the Muzaffarpur shelter home 11 times between 2015 and 2017. During her visits, the Muzaffarpur shelter home girls narrated what they were going through to Rani. She, however, allegedly remained mum about the crimes taking place at the shelter home.

The CBI filed the Muzaffarpur shelter home rape case chargesheet in a special Protection of Children from Sexual Offenses (Pocso) Act court in Patna in December. The agency took over the investigation after national outcry over the goings on at the Muzaffarpur shelter home.

The horrors that took place at the Muzaffarpur shelter home came to light after a report prepared by the Mumbai-based Tata Institute of Social Sciences (Tiss). The report raised worrying questions about the state of Bihar's shelter homes and said that girls at various shelter homes across the state were routinely sexually and mentally exploited.

The Bihar government has invited immense criticism for the state police's alleged failure to effectively probe the crimes at the various shelter homes. An unhappy Supreme Court recently ordered all the Bihar shelter home abuse cases -- there are 16 cases other than the Muzaffarpur shelter home rape case -- be probed by the CBI.

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