Rape accused won’t be spared: Nitish Kumar on Muzaffarpur shelter abuse

A day after the Opposition gunned for Nitish Kumar’s resignation over the Muzaffarpur shelter home abuse scandal during a dharna at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi, the Bihar chief minister said all those involved in the incident would not be spared.

“Neither the culprits nor their accomplices will escape from the clutches of law. They will be put behind bars. I am not going to spare anybody — whoever they may be,” he said while speaking at the launch of a sustainable livelihood project in Patna on Sunday.

Kumar’s statement came on a day the state government suspended six officials of the social welfare department in connection with the rapes. The suspended officials, posted as assistant directors of child protection units in Muzaffarpur, Munger, Araria, Madhubani, Bhagalpur and Bhojpur districts, were charged with “negligence and dereliction of duty”, said an official, adding that more heads are likely to roll as the probe progresses.

Meanwhile, at a press meet in Delhi on Sunday, senior Janata Dal (United) leader KC Tyagi dismissed the Opposition’s attack on Nitish Kumar and said the CM would not resign. He added the party was ready for a Supreme Court-monitored probe into the case.

Also read: Too much focus on one negative incident: Nitish Kumar on Muzaffarpur shelter home rapes

On the same day, senior BJP leader CP Thakur, while speaking to a regional news channel, called for the resignation of Bihar social welfare minister Kumari Manju Verma. He said Verma, of the JD(U), should take a call on the Opposition’s demand for her resignation keeping in view the “lapses on part of the social welfare department”.

“Manju Verma should resign taking moral responsibility for what happened in the shelter home... and resign,” Thakur said. The seven-member committee probing the disappearance of a speech-impaired girl from a shelter home in Madhubani on July 11, submitted its report. The missing girl was one among 14 inmates shifted from the Muzafarpur shelter. Madhubani district magistrate Shirsat Kapil Ashok said, “The report has been submitted and I will take appropriate action after going through it. The committee had also visited the shelter home...”

The principal secretary of the health department said the government is set to terminate the contract of yet another NGO, believed to be a front of Brajesh Thakur, the prime accused in the case. He added that action was being initiated against Madhu Kumari, project director of the Wama Shakti Vahini, the NGO in question. The firm is empanelled with the Bihar State Aids Control Society as a target intervention NGO. Kumari, believed to have close links with Thakur, is also an accused and is absconding.