CBI takes over...

Earlier, Muzaffarpur’s Mahila (women) police station had registered a case under the Indian Penal Code’s sections related to criminal conspiracy, rape and common intention to commit a crime and the stringent Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act. The CBI has now re-registered the case to take over the probe.

The abuse came to light in February after Mumbai’s Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) conducted a social audit of 110 shelter homes in Bihar.

TISS found girls had been illtreated in at least six of the shelter homes including in Muzaffarpur, where they were also sexually exploited.

The first case was registered after initial medical examinations confirmed at least 21 girls had been abused.

Some of the girls have recorded their statements before a magistrate as well.

So far 10 people, including the shelter in-charge Brajesh Thakur, have been arrested.

Some of the girls alleged that one of them was killed after she resisted an attempt to sexually assault her. Police looked for her body at the shelter home campus after digging its compound, but nothing was found.

The girls have told doctors they were given deworming tablets every night after dinner, which investigators believe were sedatives. The girls would go off to sleep after having the tablets and often wake up with abdominal or vaginal pain, said investigators.

Doctors found no injury marks on the external genitalia of the girls.

Old injury marks were found on their forehands, which the girls claimed were self-inflicted out of anger.

A Muzaffarpur court had ordered constitution of a medical board to examine the girls.