Expect more cases to come out: Maneka Another shelter home of rape, this time in UP

10yrold inmate escapes to narrate sexual slavery horror

A couple running a shelter home for women in Uttar Pradesh’s Deoria town was arrested for allegedly sexually exploiting residents after a 10-year-old girl escaped the premises at night and told police about a thriving sex work racket on the premises, police said on Monday.

A police team led by Deoria superintendent of police Rohan P Kanay raided the shelter home, Maa Vindhyavasini Mahila & Balika Sanrakshan Griha, and rescued 14 women and 10 minor girls late on Sunday.

Apart from the couple, Girija and Mohan Tripathi, three other employees of the home, including the couple’s daughter Kanchan Lata, were arrested. Eighteen women and girls were found missing. The Deoria incident comes weeks after a similar crime was unearthed in neighbouring Bihar’s Muzaffarpur, where more than 30 girls were allegedly raped and sexually abused at a government-funded shelter home for months, and raises serious questions about the state of inmates in shelter homes across the country.

The girl who had managed to escape told the police that men would visit the home in the evenings and take four or five women with them after speaking to Girija and Mohan.

The second incident of sexual abuse of minor girls in a shelter home , this time in UP’s Deoria district, is unlikely to be the last such, Union women and child minister Maneka Gandhi admitted. “Many of the government-run shelter homes are in a state of neglect,” Gandhi added.

Since 2015, the women and child minister has written thrice to each one of the over 700 Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha members of parliament (MPs) requesting them to “take out some time and visit” such shelters for women and children in their respective constituencies periodically to check the living conditions as well as the level of care being provided to the residents.