Source – indiatoday.in
More than a year after two skeletons were recovered from a shelter home for girls in Bihar’s Muzaffarpur, amidst allegations of several of the inmates being sexually assaulted, drugged and some disposed of, the CBI has on Wednesday said that the remains were not of the inmates.
Girls recovered from the shelter home had given statements to counsellors from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences that they believed that some girls had been killed and buried in the shelter home campus.
The CBI in an earlier status report to the court had said that the names of the allegedly missing girls were being verified, as about 35 girls had similar names. On Wednesday, Attorney-General KK Venugopal informed the bench headed by CJI SA Bobde that the CBI had traced all the inmates who had been sent to the shelter home and none of them were dead.
The A-G also informed the bench that the skeletons could not have been those of the girls sent to the shelter home, as one was found to be of an adult male, while the other was of an adult female.
The probe is underway, said the A-G. The apex court had transferred the trial of the sexual assault and drugging case to Delhi, where the special court is scheduled to pronounce its verdict against Bihar strongman Brajesh Thakur and 20 others, including the government officials of the social welfare department and the Child Welfare Committee’s members.
The A-G said the testimony given by the girls was due to the traumatised condition of the victims, who had been repeatedly drugged, sexually assaulted and physically beaten by the shelter home staff and others. There is no evidence of any murder of any of the inmates. The children were under tremendous trauma. The NIMHANS teams have counselled and spoken to the children and found that there was no murder, said the A-G. The apex court has taken note of the submissions made by the CBI and will hear the matter after two weeks.