HORROR HOMES OF BIHAR
New scandals suggest massive collusion in Bihar’s shelter homes. Will Nitish act?
The Muzaffarpur government shelter home case where 34 destitute girls were abused and raped for months sent shockwaves across Bihar. The resultant backlash which led to a review of the 110 shelter homes sponsored by the state social welfare department has now exposed how deep the rot runs.
Cases of sexual abuse against inmates have surfaced in Motihari and Kaimur and now young boys from shelters in Bhagalpur, Gaya, Araria and Munger have complained of physical violence. Meanwhile, 19 new FIRs have been registered against various shelter homes, a district programme officer in Vaishali has been arrested for sexually abusing shelter home inmates there, and former social welfare minister Parveen Amanullah has blamed Chief Minister Nitish Kumar for tolerating the irregularities perpetrated by NGOs in cahoots with bureaucrats.
In a separate development, Gaya police arrested a Buddhist monk, Bhante Sanghpriya, for sexually abusing 32 minor children who lived at his meditation centre. Bhante’s NGO is registered with the state government as a trust, opening a new can of worms over the shady characters entrusted with the responsibility of vulnerable women and children by the state.
One such case surfaced on August 10 when two women, 35-year-old Babli and 17-year-old Punam from Aasra, a halfway house for women sponsored by the social welfare department and run by an NGO in Patna, Anumaya Human Resources Foundation (AHRF), were taken to Patna Medical College where they were declared “brought dead”. The doctors informed the police after examination of their medical history revealed that the two had been battling high fever for over a fortnight. Babli, a chronic schizophrenia patient, and Punam had died of acute dehydration. The two had apparently stopped taking food a week before their deaths, surviving only on tea and biscuits. Rather than ensure proper medical treatment, the AHRF officials took them to hospital only when it was too late, a clear case of medical negligence.
Who runs the shelter homes?
Manisha Dayal, a former model turned event manager and socialite, is known more for her proximity to Patna’s politicians and bureaucrats than any social work. But she was given the lucrative job of running the shelter home for 75 mentally ill women in the capital through her Anumaya Foundation.
Sanctioned in April, the Patna halfway house project was not among the 110 government-funded shelter homes that the Tata Institute of Social Science (TISS) had inspected last year, an exercise that exposed the Muzaffarpur shelter home rapes and various irregularities in others. Examples of abuse and violence, of varying degrees and form, were found in almost all the shelter homes. But, as the Aasra case proves, the NGOs entrusted with the task have not done any better.
Patna police have arrested Dayal and her associate Chirantan Kumar. The two, currently in judicial custody, have been booked on charges of cheating and medical negligence under sections 406 (punishment for criminal
The TISS audit found examples of violence and abuse in almost all the 110 shelter homes run by the state
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