CBI had dug up the front portion of an NGO run by Thakur. (File Photo)The CBI team probing the Muzaffarpur shelter home abuse case told the Supreme Court on Friday that it is investigating allegations that 11 girls living at the home were murdered by key accused Brajesh Thakur and his associates.
In an affidavit, the CBI “specifically denied” that it has “deliberately not filed the chargesheet under serious and graver provisions”.
Investigation of the “alleged murders”, the agency mentioned, is “going on”.
The CBI stated: “From the statements of victims recorded by IOs (investigating officers) and NIMHANS team, names of 11 girls emerged, who were said to be allegedly murdered by the accused Brajesh Thakur and his associates…These allegations are being duly investigated…by scrutinising the master register (maintained at the shelter home) to locate the body, field-level verification as to the existence of the girls alleged to be murdered, etc.”
The affidavit was filed in reply to a plea by Patna-based journalist Nivedita Jha, filed through advocate Fauzia Shakil. The apex court took up the matter last year on Jha’s petition.
Appearing for Jha, advocate Shoeb Alam told a bench headed by CJI Ranjan Gogoi that the agency had not added murder charges and other offences to the chargesheet despite statements of witnesses and victims.
Attorney General K K Vengopal termed this “wholly baseless”.
Alam sought an urgent hearing in the matter, saying that the court had fixed a time-line for the trial. The court agreed to take it up next week.
The CBI affidavit stated, “On scrutiny of the details of these 11 girls entered in the master register, it was found that there were 35 girls with identical/similar names, who were at one time or the other (residents of the home).”
The affidavit stated that the local police and the CBI had excavated the alleged burial grounds pointed out by the inmates, and that a bundle of bones was recovered from a spot at the instance of one of the accused, Guddu Patel.
The CBI said it is trying to get a report from the Central Forensic Science Lab on the bones.
On the other aspects of the probe, the agency said it is waiting for the opinion of the Government Examiner of Questionable Documents “regarding forgery in the bank instruments and other related papers by Brajesh Thakur and his associates”.
It is also seeking to fix accountability of officers of Bihar Social Welfare Department regarding continuation of grants, and not taking any punitive action against Thakur’s NGO, which was operating the home despite receiving adverse inspection reports, the CBI submitted.
Members of the Child Welfare Committee, Muzaffarpur, are also accused in the case and have been named in the chargesheet, the CBI pointed out. It said it needs to be probed whether proper procedure was followed in the matter of their nomination or appointment to the committee.
The Supreme Court had taken over the monitoring in the case from Patna High Court on September 20, 2018.
