The Uttarakhand State Commission for Protection of Child Rights (USCPCR) today asked the state government to expedite the probe into the incident in which five minor girls allegedly "escaped" from a state-run shelter home here.
Terming the incident, which took place on December 17, "sensitive", the state child rights panel also asked the Uttarkhand government to submit a report.
"Though the girls were caught by locals on the same day and handed over to the police, the commission wants to know what circumstances forced them to run away from the shelter home-- a question that still remains unanswered," the panel's chairman Yogendra Khanduri told PTI here.
"The silence of the social welfare department on the issue becomes more objectionable when viewed in the light of the fact that the shelter home has been in the news for all the wrong reasons in the past," Khanduri said.
In a letter to Chief Secretary Utpal Kumar Singh, the panel's chairman drew his attention to the department's "silence" over the incident despite the fact that he had sought a report from it within a week of the incident.
He also asked the chief secretary to seek an explanation from the department on "why it was so sluggish in its response to the commission's letter".
"It is a sensitive matter related to five minor girls escaping together from the shelter home in a planned way. This indicates all is not well with the institution.
"The social welfare department should have shown more urgency in probing it instead of choosing to sleep over my letter," Khanduri said.
"The incident took place on December 17 and I wrote to additional chief secretary of the social welfare department, Ranbir Singh, on December 18 giving him a weeks time to probe the incident and submit a report to the commission.
"It is more than a month since, but the department is yet to furnish a report," he said.
Khanduri said the commission was well within its rights to seek a report from the department.
He cited relevant sections of the Commission Act which empowered the USCPCR to "inspect or cause to be inspected any juvenile custodial home, or any other place of residence or institution meant for children, under the control of the central or state government or any other authority including any institution run by a social organisation."
The children's shelter home in Dehradun has two wings -- Shishu Sadan (for children from 0-10 years) and Balika Niketan (for girls from 11-18 years). These are being run on the same campus as that of the Nari Niketan.
In November last year, seven caretakers and a former pharmacist of the Shishu Sadan were booked on charges of negligence in duty which allegedly led to the death of two children in 2016 and disability of another in 2014.
Prior to that, the case of alleged sexual abuse and forced abortion of a hearing and speech impaired inmate at Nari Niketan had created ripples in November 2015.
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