New Delhi: The Supreme Court today displayed incredulity when it came down on heavily on the Bihar police for its failure to arrest former Bihar cabinet minister Manju Verma for her involvement in the Muzaffarpur shelter home sex abuse scandal.
“Fantastic! The cabinet minister (Manju Verma) is on the run, fantastic. How could it happen that the cabinet minister is absconding and nobody knows where she is? Do you realise the seriousness of the issue that the cabinet minister is not traceable? It’s too much,” Justice Madan B. Lokur said.
Summoning the Director General of Bihar Police to appear before the apex court on November 27 if the police fails to arrest the former social welfare by then, the court, expressing its concern at the state of shelter homes in Bihar, has also asked that the chief secretary appear before it on the same day and personally explain “why action was not taken against 14 other shelter homes, against which, cases of torture and sexual abuse of girls, were reported by the Tata Institute of Social Sciences”.
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Over 34 girls were allegedly sexually abused in the state-run home run by NGO Seva Sankalp Evam Vikas Samiti.
Since the case has landed in the Supreme Court, the court has asked non-stop about why the Bihar police s finding it impossible to arrest Verma, imploring whether a former minister is above the law and whether it is the Bihar government as a whole that must be blamed.
A non-bailable warrant was issued against Verma on November 1 under the Arms Act. During a police raid in August in connection to the Muzaffarpur shelter home, over 50 live cartridges were found.
Jan Adhikar Party supporters protest against Bihar’s Social Welfare Department Minister Manju Verma. Credit: PTI
On May 30, 44 girls were rescued from a shelter on Muzaffarpur’s Sahu Road following allegations of sexual abuse. The stories that poured out were of abortions, murder and repeated rape. It was reported that the girls were given sedatives and were raped when they were unconscious and even beaten when they did not submit to the demands of their abusers.
At the time, DSP Mukul Ranjan had said that police had seized condoms, medicines and registers from the shelter home’s premises. The registers contained bank account information and admission details of the women lodged in the home.
The NGO’s owner, Brajesh Thakur, and ten others implicated in the cases, have been arrested so far. On October 30, the Supreme Court, while asking yet again why Verma had not been arrested, directed that Thakur be shifted to the Patiala high-security jail in Punjab from Bihar’s Badarpur jail.
In September, the Supreme Court had revoked the Bihar high court order which enacted a blanket ban on all media reporting regarding the case.
The alleged sexual exploitation of the girls was first highlighted in an audit report submitted by the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) to the state’s social welfare department.
(With inputs from PTI)