PATNA: Minor girls staying at the Muzaffarpur shelter home were forced to entertain ‘guests’ by dancing in scanty clothes to the tunes of vulgar songs before being raped by them. These sordid details of sexual assault of the girls at the government-run shelter home in Bihar’s Muzaffarpur district have been revealed in the CBI charge sheet filed in the case.

The charge sheet names 21 people as accused, including Brajesh Thakur, the politically connected owner of Seva Sankalp Evam Vikas Samiti (SSVS), the NGO that ran the shelter home, and seven of its women employees.

It was Thakur, currently lodged in a jail in Patiala in Punjab, who forced the hapless minor girls to entertain the male guests routinely visiting the shelter home, Balika Grih. If the girls refused to comply, they were given only chapattis and salt for dinner while those who complied were served proper dinner, says the 73-page charge-sheet submitted by CBI at a special POCSO court in Muzaffarpur on December 19.

Thakur also sexually assaulted the girls. The charge sheet also names child protection officer Ravi Kumar Roshan and Ramanuj Thakur alias Mamu among those who helped Thakur in forcing the girls to dance to vulgar songs and raping them.

The horrific sexual abuses came to light in a social audit report of Tata Institute of Social Sciences in April last year. The police registered an FIR against 11 people in May 2018. Massive public and political outcry over the scandal prompted Bihar CM Nitish Kumar to order a CBI probe on July 26, 2018. Thakur was shifted to the Patiala jail recently after the  CBI accused him of trying to influence witnesses and destroying evidence.

No proper meal for defiance

If the girls refused to comply, they were given only chapattis and salt for dinner while those who complied were served proper dinner, says the CBI charge sheet filed in Muzaffarpur case