Prime accused in Muzaffarpur shelter home sex scandal shifted to Bhagalpur jail

Thakur headed the NGO which ran the shelter home where more than 30 girls are said to have suffered sexual abuse. He has been in jail in Muzaffarpur since June this year.

We had received a direction to shift Brajesh Thakur from the Shaheed Khudiran Bose Jail, Muzaffarpur, to the Special Central Jail in Bhagalpur. The order was complied with this morning, Jail superintendent Rajiv Kumar Singh told PTI over phone.

Replying to a query, he said at present only Thakur has been shifted out of Muzaffarpur since no directions have been received so far  to transfer any other accused in the case in connection with which as many 15 persons have been arrested so far.

Sources in the prison department here said that the move followed a request by the CBI, which is investigating the case, since it was wary of keeping Thakur in the jail which was overcrowded and situated in a town where he was known to be an influential person.

The scandal had come to light earlier this year when the Mumbai-based Tata Institute of Social Sciences, in its report of social audit conducted of shelter homes across the state, cited complaints of sexual abuse by inmates of the care unit for minor girls in Muzaffarpur.

An FIR was lodged by the state social welfare department thereafter and police arrested 10 persons, including Thakur, in this connection. A countrywide outcry followed sexual abuse of many inmates being confirmed in medical examinations and reports of a girl having been beaten to death a few years ago.

The Nitish Kumar government handed over the probe to the CBI in July. The social welfare minister Manju Verma also stepped down shortly afterwards following allegations that her husband Chandrashekhar Verma had close links with Thakur.

In the recent past, the CBI has arrested five more persons in connection with the case one of them a social welfare department official and the remaining employees of Thakur who besides running the NGO, owned many businesses and even published a number of small newspapers.