CM Nitish likely to face CBI probe in shelter home case
Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar may face CBI probe in connection with Muzaffarpur shelter home case.
Senior lawyer Sudhir Kumar Ojha said that “special Pocso ( Protection of Children from Sexual Offences) court has ordered the CBI to examine the role of the Bihar chief minister and others after a petition was filed by one of the accused in the case.”
He said that one of the accused, Ashwani Kumar, who was arrested in November last year for administering sedatives to the girls at the Muzaffarpur shelter home, requested the court in his petition to order investigating agencies to “probe the close links of
main accused Brajesh Thakur with top politicians of the state, including the Bihar chief minister.”
In his four- page petition, Ashwani Kumar said that “if CBI investigates Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar, principal secretary of the social welfare department Atul Prasad, former Muzaffarpur district magistrate Dharmendra Singh, and other officials, then their roles can also be exposed in the case.”
The petition submitted in the Pocso court against the Bihar chief minister and the court’s observation in the case may cause rumblings in the political circle here.
Sources said that the Opposition parties may also use the issue as an agenda against the NDA in the 2019 general elections. A week ago, the Supreme Court had transferred the shelter home sexual abuse case to Saket Court in New Delhi and ordered the CBI to conclude the trial in six months.
The matter was handed over to the CBI in July last year after Opposition parties blamed the state government of interfering in the police probe to save “influential people” in the case.