Former Bihar Minister Manju Verma’s husband Chandrasekhar Verma surrendered before a court on Monday in connection with the Muzaffarpur shelter home rape case.
Verma, who was absconding for over a month surrendered in the Begusarai District Court after a lower court and the Patna High Court repeatedly rejected his interim bail petitions.
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Bihar’s social welfare minister Manju Verma, who found herself at the centre of controversy as her husband is believed to have links with Muzaffarpur shelter home, had resigned in August.
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.
Last week, the Supreme Court rapped the state government and the CBI for not arresting Verma yet.
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.
An FIR was subsequently registered by the Bihar social welfare department and 10 persons, including prime accused Brajesh Thakur whose NGO ran the shelter home, were arrested.
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.
The Supreme Court had in September vacated the Patna High Court’s 23 August order banning the media from reporting on the Muzaffarpur shelter home rape case and decided to monitor the investigation.