6 officials suspended over Muzaffarpur rape horror
PATNA: The Bihar government has suspended six officials of the state social welfare department in connection with the sexual abuse of minors at a Muzaffarpur shelter home. “The officials had failed to report undesirable activities and take timely corrective steps at shelter homes in Muzaffarpur as well as other places despite being flagged about it in a social and audit report by Koshis, a field-action project of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences,” an official said on condition of anonymity.
PATNA: A day after the Opposition, gunned for Nitish Kumar’s resignation over the Muzaffarpur shelter home rapes scandal during a dharna at the Jantar Mantar in 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 the state capital on Sunday.
Kumar’s statement came on the 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.
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.