CBI team inspects District Child Protection Unit office

A CBI team today

carried out inspection of the office of District Child Protection Unit (DCPU) here as part of its investigation into the case of sexual abuse of more than 30 girls at a state-funded shelter home here.

Sources in the local administration said the CBI team inspected the chamber of Divesh Sharma, the suspended DCPU Assistant Director who was recently placed under suspension for dereliction of duty by the Bihar Social Welfare department.

The CBI team is understood to have gone through documents kept there and spoken to other officials posted at the DCPU office, the sources said.

Meanwhile, a team of doctors set up at the instance of the superintendent of the Central Jail examined Brajesh Thakur, one of the key accused in the scandal who also headed the NGO which ran the shelter home.

 

According to sources, the CBI is likely to seek Thakur's remand provided he is declared fit for the purpose in the medical report

In a related development, a team of Press Information Bureau (PIB) officials also arrived here this morning and inspected the premises where the shelter home and office of the Hindi daily "Pratah Kamal" were located.

Pratah Kamal is said to be owned by Brajesh Thakur.

Besides the Hindi daily, Thakur is said to be owning an English newspaper News Next and an Urdu journal "Haalaat-e-Bihar".

The publications have been getting advertisements from the state government for quite long but the same was stopped in June after he was made an accused in the case. Besides, Thakurs accreditation with PIB, New Delhi, was cancelled last week.

Earlier in the day, the Patna High Court accepted the Bihar government's request to take up monitoring of CBI investigation into the case and ensure its speedy trial by appointing a special judge.

The issue of sexual exploitation was first highlighted in a social audit report submitted by Tata Institute of Social Science, Mumbai, to the state's Social Welfare Department in April.

An FIR was lodged on May 31 against 11 persons, including Brajesh Thakur, the owner of the NGO 'Seva Sankalp Evam Vikas Samiti' which ran the shelter home for destitute girls funded by the government.

Ten out of 11 accused persons, including Thakur, have been arrested in the case so far and the state police had submitted its charge sheet against them before a before Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) court in Muzaffarpur.

The medical examinations of 34 of the 42 inmates of shelter home in Muzaffarpur have so far confirmed that they were sexually exploited.