Bihar’s social welfare minister Manju Verma had to resign after it became known that her husband was in close touch with the main accused Brijesh Thakur.
Collage of Brijesh Thakur and Former Bihar Minister Manju Verma (Photo: Twitter)
Days after the Supreme Court termed the Muzaffarpur shelter home rape case as “scary”, the court on Tuesday expressed shock when it was informed that the girls in the shelter home were given drugs.
“These girls are being injected with drugs so that they can be raped. What is this going on?” the court asked.
Lashing out at Bihar government, the court questioned why former minister Manju Verma – whose husband is believed to have links with the shelter home rape case – had not been arrested.
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“Just because she (Former Bihar minister Manju Verma) happens to be cabinet minister doesn’t make her above the law. The whole thing is highly suspicious. Why has she not been arrested? It’s too much. Nobody is bothered about the law,” the court told the Bihar government.
Bihar’s social welfare minister Manju Verma had to resign after it became known that her husband was in close touch with the main accused Brijesh Thakur.
The apex court also ordered the transfer of Thakur, the main accused in Muzaffarpur shelter home case, to a high-security jail in Punjab’s Patiala.
The court had previously observed that Brajesh Thakur should be moved to a jail outside Bihar while referring to the “scary” details of the crime. It further said that the accused was an influential person and was obstructing the investigation.
Read | Muzaffarpur shelter home rapes ‘scary’, move accused to jail outside Bihar: SC
The court also sought the list of CBI officers investigating the case from September 20 till now by October 31.
Earlier on Monday, Former Bihar Minister Manju Verma’s husband Chandrasekhar Verma surrendered before the Begusarai District Court after a lower court and the Patna High Court repeatedly rejected his interim bail petitions.
Read | Muzaffarpur shelter home case | Ex-Bihar minister’s husband surrenders before court
Earlier in September, an FIR was registered against the former minister and her husband in August under Arms Act, 1959, following the recovery of 50 cartridges from her in-law’s house at Begusarai district during a CBI raid in connection with the Muzaffarpur shelter home sex scandal.
At the shelter home in Muzaffarpur, 34 girls – aged seven to fourteen – were allegedly drugged, raped, forced to sleep naked and scalded with boiling water. Some of the girls were also forced to undergo an abortion.
The case came to light when the Bihar Social Welfare Department filed an FIR based on a social audit of the shelter home conducted by the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai.
An FIR was subsequently registered by the Bihar social welfare department and 10 persons, including prime accused Brijesh Thakur whose NGO ran the shelter home, were arrested.
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