Two key officials of the NGO running a shelter home for mentally challenged women, where two inmates died under mysterious circumstances recently, were sent to three days in police custody today.
Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Abhijit Kumar granted police remand for Manisha Dayal and Chirantan Kumar - Secretary and Manager, respectively, of the NGO "Anumaya Human Resources Foundation", which runs the "Aasra" shelter home in Nepali Nagar locality here.
The duo was arrested late last night after death of two inmates, aged 17 and 40 years, came to light.
An FIR was lodged at Rajiv Nagar police station against four persons, including the arrested accused, under IPC sections relating to causing death by negligence and criminal breach of trust.
The other two accused -- a doctor and an auxiliary nurse midwife attached to the shelter home -- are absconding since the deaths were reported.
The deaths in the Patna-based shelter home coming close on the heels of the Muzaffarpur shelter home sexual abuse case has caught national attention once again on sorry state of affairs in the government-funded centres managed by the social welfare department.
According to Inspector General of Police, Patna Zone, Naiyar Hasnain Khan, police remand was sought "since we have not been able to interrogate them properly".
He said an SP rank official has been directed to "look into the entire episode minutely, from all possible angles, and submit a supervision report which could be used in the investigation".
Asked about reports that the concerned police stations were not informed about the deaths even though post-mortem was conducted at the Patna Medical College Hospital in presence of two sub-inspectors, the IG said there was "no lapse".
"The problem arose because those who got the two women admitted to the hospital only entered the address without mentioning that they had been staying at a shelter home. This prevented the sub-inspectors from realising the gravity of the matter at hand," Khan said.
"We are also awaiting the forensic report on the viscera of the two deceased," he said, adding that as per norms, police have written to the Indian Medical Association that it needs to take into custody a doctor attached to the shelter home, named in the FIR, and expressed confidence that the fourth accused - an auxiliary nurse midwife - would be "nabbed soon".
Meanwhile, a controversy arose with pictures of the glamorous-looking former model Dayal with a number of senior leaders of political parties going viral.
The photographs were purportedly taken from her Facebook account, which was deactivated this afternoon. In the photographs, Dayal could be seen sharing space with senior JD(U) MLA Shyam Rajak, state minister and BJP leader Vinod Narayan Jha and RJD legislator Shivchandra Ram.
All the leaders, however, told regional news channels that being public figures they were required to meet many people whom they did not know properly.
Some reports claimed that Dayal was a close relative of the wife of senior RJD leader Abdul Bari Siddiqui. Talking to a news portal, Siddiqui acknowledged that he had known Dayal for quite some time but denied any family ties with her.
Meanwhile, Bihar Congress working president Kaukab Qadri expressed alarm on the Patna shelter home incident, which comes close on the heels of the Muzaffarpur sex scandal.
In a statement, he asked the Nitish Kumar government to "cancel the outsourcing of all shelter homes to NGOs and take up the responsibility for administration of these".
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