Muzaffarpur shelter home horror - Why rape cases are rising in Nitish Kumar's Bihar
Sixteen out of the 44 girls living in a shelter home in Muzaffarpur district had been sexually assaulted, the medical test results of 13 more girls have confirmed rape. A total of 42 girls had been sent for medical examination. According to the police, “sexual contact” has been confirmed so far in the cases of all the 29 girls whose reports are available. The medical reports of 13 more girls are still awaited.
Two girls were reportedly not sent for a medical examination as they were unwell.
This disclosure has put the spotlight back on "Sushasan Babu" of Bihar — chief minister Nitish Kumar. This is perhaps the first case in the state where mass rape has taken place. All this happened inside a govt-aided shelter home. Political fireworks were witnessed in the Bihar Assembly on Tuesday (July 24) with the opposition RJD demanding a CBI probe into the 29 rape cases that took place at the shelter home in Muzaffarpur. Alleging involvement of politicians and bureaucrats in the case, the party accused the Nitish Kumar government of shielding the guilty.
"What has happened at the shelter home in Muzaffarpur is shocking. A CBI probe is needed in this case to get to the bottom of the fact," said Rabri Devi, leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Council. The state government countered the Opposition’s allegations maintaining that the entire matter came to light following its initiative and whosoever guilty will be punished. "Our government does not protect anyone. We have cracked the whip and those who are guilty will be arrested and taken to task," said Shyam Rajak, JD(U) legislator. Amid the political crossfire, state DGP KS Dwivedi on Tuesday ruled out any possibility of CBI taking over the case.
What made matters more worse for the Nitish administration was the suspicion that a minor girl had been killed in the shelter home and buried there for resisting sexual advances. The police on Monday (July 23), under the supervision of a magistrate dug up the premises of the shelter home to exhume the body. The exercise was carried after one of the rape survivors claimed that the body was buried inside the shelter home premises. However, the police couldn't recover the remains of the minor girl.
"During the ongoing investigations, one of the survivors told us that body of a girl was buried inside the shelter home premises," said Harpreet Kaur, SSP Muzaffarpur.
It may be mentioned that of the 29 girls whose medical test results have confirmed rape, some of them were as young as seven years at the time. The medical examination of all the girls were conducted at the Patna Medical College and Hospital. The hospital administration had sent the report to the Muzaffarpur police.
"We have received the medical reports from Patna today of 42 girls out of which it has been said that 29 of them had sexual contact. We are going to file chargesheet against the accused who have been arrested," said KS Dwivedi, Bihar DGP.
The entire matter came to light in May when a social audit was conducted by the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai. TISS submitted a 100-page detailed social audit report to the state government following which government cracked down on the shelter home.
An FIR was lodged in this case after which 10 people, including the owner and a member of child welfare committee besides eight female staff members were arrested. During the preliminary investigation, the police had found that the girls were not only sexually violated by the owner and the child welfare committe member but also taken outside on various occasions. The police have confirmed that many outsiders also used to frequent the shelter homes, indicating that the girls were pushed into flesh trade.
The Muzaffarpur incident is not the only case of women and minor girls being targeted in the state in the past few weeks raising serious questions over the law and order situation in the state under the Nitish government. There have been more than half-a-dozen separate incidents where women have been sexually molested by group of men in various parts of the state and their videos have gone viral.
Although the police claimed to have taken action in these cases and arrested the accused, the question here is —why have women suddenly become so unsafe in Bihar?