Security personnel guard during an inspection by the CBI along with the officers of Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL), at the shelter home, where 34 minor girls were allegedly raped, in Muzaffarpur. (Source: PTI Photo)
A CBI team on Saturday visited the NGO and newspaper office of Brajesh Thakur, the main accused in the shelter home abuse case, and questioned his son Rahul Anand for the first time.
Anand, editor of Hindi daily Pratah Kamal, was asked why his family recently sold a prime property in Muzaffarpur and about the finances of his family NGO, which has been running the shelter since 2013. Anand reportedly told the CBI sleuths that the family required money as the family’s “sources of income had dried up”.
The CBI team led by SP JP Mishra opened all the rooms of the shelter home. CBI sources said the team might conduct fresh digging at the foreground of the shelter.
The team also got a JCB machine to the spot. A CBI source said: “Though Muzaffarpur police had collected soil samples after digging a spot outside the shelter, it might conduct fresh digging on Sunday in a bid to find evidence or at least collect soil samples for forensic examination.”
Three girls in their statements before the Muzaffarpur POCSO court had alleged that a girl had been killed and buried in the NGO campus. Muzaffarpur police, however, had not found any corroborating evidence after digging the spot identified by the three girls. The forensic report of the soil collected after the digging by the police last month is still awaited.
A forensic team accompanying the CBI team collected more samples from the shelter after its locks were opened. The staircase was measured. The CBI team also took all files of the shelter in its possession.
The CBI team procured a video of the statement by Shiba Kumari Singh, wife of Ravi Kumar Roshan — who was district child protection officer and is one of the 10 arrested. It was Shiba who had alleged that former social welfare minister Manju Verma’s husband Chandra Shekhar Verma had visited the shelter. Verma resigned as minister in the face of Shiba’s allegations and the Opposition mounting pressure for her resignation.