Bihar police has arrested four people in the gang-rape of a woman who had survived the horrific sexual exploitation in the Muzaffarpur shelter-home last year. The woman in her complaint said that she was abducted and gang-raped in a moving car on Saturday.

Town police station in-charge Sashibhusan Thakur said the case was registered based on the rape survivor’s statement against the four accused.  “She has been admitted to a government hospital, where her medical examination was conducted. The report is awaited,” Thakur said. He added that women police station in-charge Punam Kumari had met the survivor at the hospital and had started investigating the case.

“All four people had their faces covered, but I managed to tear away the covers from two of them. Then the other two also removed their masks,” she told the police. “When they were done, they warned me that if I told my family then I will be killed and if I go to the police, my family members will be kidnapped,” Jayant Kant, a senior police officer of Champaran district quoted her as saying.

The medical report is yet to be submitted in the case. Last week, the Supreme Court ordered eight survivors of sexual abuse in the Muzaffarpur shelter home case, to be sent back to their families.

The apex court order came on the report of the Tata Institute for Social Sciences’ (TISS) field action project ‘Koshish’, which suggested sending the girls back to their families.

A total of 44 girls were victims in the shelter home abuse case, which is currently being probed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). The trial of the 21 accused, chargesheeted by the CBI for sexual abuse of the inmates, is currently on in a Delhi court.

The Muzaffarpur horror came to light in May 2018 when the Bihar Social Welfare Department filed an FIR based on a TISS social audit. Brajesh Thakur, a journalist-turned-social activist heading the NGO who ran the shelter home, and other accused were arrested. The matter was handed over to the CBI in July last year.

Thakur has since been shifted to the high-security Patiala jail following a Supreme Court order, while the other accused, including his close aides and some government officials, are lodged in jails in Patna and Muzaffarpur. The trial of the case was later shifted to Delhi.