In Depth: Unravelling the shelter home horrors of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar that shocked the nation

It took the exemplary courage of a 10-year-old to bring to end years of sexual abuse that girls and young women were subjected to in a child shelter home in Uttar Pradesh's Deoria.

Pinky* remembers August 5 vividly. Girija Tripathi, the woman running the home, who the children referred to as madam ji, slapped her for refusing to clean the floor. Scared that she will not be given the two chapatis for the day, she picked up the stinking mob. But as soon as Tripathi left, Pinky ran away.

"Main pichle darwaje se bhag kar police station pahuch gayi (I dashed out of the back door and ran to the police station)," says Pinky, who's from Bihar's Bettiah district. Initially, the police did not believe her. But when she started narrating the ordeal of the women in detail, they took her to the Superintendent of Police (SP) Rohan P Kanay.

She told them how Tripathi took away the girls in the night, who would cry in pain when brought back the next morning. Relying on Pinky's statements, the police raided the shelter home run by an NGO called Maa Vindhyavasini Mahila Prashikshan Evam Samaj Sewa Sansthan.

Housed in a 100-year-old double-storeyed building near the Deoria railway station, the facility held untold horrors for the young women. Inside, the police found 23 children living in pitiable conditions, while 19 others, whose names were on the records, were missing. One of the girls was found in an Old Age home in Gorakhpur, the hometown of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. The ensuing police investigations revealed that the shelter home, which was for girls above 18, housed 10 girls who were below that age.

Inside the police station, after they were rescued, the impoverished girls were first fed. One of the inmates said, "Pehli baar achcha khana khaya (We've eaten good food for the very time)."

They recounted how Tripathi would take them away in cars. "I used to be taken to hotels in Gorakhpur to spend nights with a minimum of two people. They would play with my body whole night. In the morning, the car would drop me back to Deoria. Madamji would give us Rs 500, or more, for each night," said one of the rescued inmates.

Tripathi was arrested, along with her husband, Mohan Tripathi, and two daughters Kanchan Lata and Kanak Lata, as well as clerk Ankit Tripathi and cook Mala Srivastava. Her NGO's licenses were cancelled and the Allahabad High Court ordered a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe to inquire into the finances of NGOs that run shelter homes.

Houses of Horrors

The horror of the Deoria shelter home is one in perhaps hundreds that continue to take place in other parts of the country, from what unfolded in Bihar's Muzaffarpur has revealed. Inside a Balika Grih, where 34 of the 42 inmates have been found to have been sexually assaulted, the medical reports as well, as the statements of the girls recorded under Section 164, revealed chilling facts about the brutalities they had to face. "The girls were not just sexually abused and physically tortured, but, at least three of them were forced to go for abortion. Medicines and medical equipment were seized from the shelter home by the police," said an investigating officer.

Balika Grih was run by Brajesh Thakur, an influential and politically-connected man who contested the Assembly elections twice (unsuccessfully), and runs over 10 NGOs. He also publishes three newspapers, one each in English, Urdu, and Hindi.

It was when the Social Welfare Department (SWD) of Bihar asked a seven-member team of the 'Koshish Project' of the Mumbai-based Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) to audit "welfare institutions" in the state that the skeletons came tumbling out.

The TISS team was asked to conduct a social audit of 110 state-run or aided institutions in June 2017. "When we reached the home to rescue the girls, some of us had tears in our eyes. So many people had inspected the place earlier — from child protection committee and the women's commission to independent bodies — but no one reported the criminal activities going on there," an official, initially associated with the case, told DNA. "It was challenging to get the medical examinations conducted, record the statements as well as search the shelter home, investigate other places, and interrogate the people in Muzaffarpur," he added.

The scale of horror "appalled" even the surveyors, who have mentioned in their report that "abuse, varying in forms and degree of intensity, was prevalent in almost all institutions" and that life of residents was in danger at some of these homes.

"We had imagined administrative lapses but never the torture and sexual abuse that came to the fore in the study," says Atul Prasad, Principal Secretary, SWD, Bihar.

Two months after the incident came to light, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said he was hurt, ashamed and felt a sense of guilt over it but in the same voice added that none will be spared - neither the guilty, nor those protecting them.

In their statements, girls, as young as seven years, have accused Thakur and others of rape. Some referred to him as "hunterwale uncle", others mentioned of "moochwale uncle" and said they were drugged and raped. One even said that she deliberately cut herself to avoid rape. Three girls also stated that one shelter home resident was murdered and buried in the campus. However, when the Muzaffarpur police obtained the permission and dug the premises on July 23, they found nothing.

The condition of some of the victims was so bad that the state government had to rope in psychiatric experts from Delhi and Bengaluru to treat them.

When the TISS audit report blew the lid off the scandal, a second FIR was lodged in a related case on July 30, when at least 11 women were reported to be missing from a short-stay Swadhar home, also run by Thakur's NGO in Muzaffarpur. "When the Swadhar home was inspected in March, there were 11 women, but during the checking this June, no one was there. Neither was there any communication on behalf of the NGO to the SWD relating to the whereabouts of these women," a cop said.

After the cases were lodged, the state and the central government cancelled Thakur's press accreditation. "The Hindi daily, Pratah Kamal, was registered in 1982 and received regular advertisements from the state government from 1986-87. The paper was registered in the name of Rahul Anand, Thakur's son," said Atish Chandra, Secretary, Information and Public Relation Department (IPRD), Bihar. "After 2015, the Bihar government rolled out a new advertisement policy in which bigger newspapers were given more ads as it was more beneficial for the government. Ever since, the total percentage of adverts given to Pratah Kamal was between 0.5-1 per cent of all the ads issued by the government."

A source said Thakur neither had the infrastructure not the manpower to print more than a few hundred copies, but he showed inflated circulation figures of over 60,000 to get the government ads. "He received ads worth around Rs 30-40 lakh every year," the source said. Thakur has contradicted the claim by saying that he received ads worth Rs 1,000-2,000 daily and defended himself saying that almost all local newspapers showed inflated circulation figures to get ads.

Such was Thakur's clout in the area that some neighbours said they were afraid to report to the police, despite hearing screams of girls from the Balika Grih. "He boasted of links with big people. He didn't even let us install CCTV cameras in the locality when we wanted it for security purposes," one of the neighbours said.

In fact, Thakur was able to "manipulate" the system to such extent that few days after his arrest, he was admitted to Shri Krishna Medical College and Hospital-Muzaffarpur. "On June 27, he returned to jail but was kept in the jail hospital instead of the barracks as the doctors had suggested monitoring of his diabetes and hypertension," said Muzaffarpur Jail Superintendent RK Jha.

Even later, when Thakur was presented before a special POCSO (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act) court, he requested the judge to direct the officers to "allow him to sleep" apart from asking for a commode as he "suffered from slip disc". He was unfazed by women throwing black ink at him and was at his smiling self.

Sources claimed Thakur's "overconfidence" stemmed from his political connections — photographs of him with CM Nitish, deputy CM Sushil Modi and even former CM Lalu Prasad Yadav did rounds in the media.

Politicising crimes

Thakur even claimed that he was going to join the Congress and that his candidature from Muzaffarpur was "almost final". Bihar Pradesh Congress Committee president (in charge), Kaukab Quadri, refuted party's links with Thakur and said he was making such statements under pressure.

With gory details emerging as the layers of the case unfolded every passing day, the Opposition, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and Congress, started demanding a court-monitored inquiry by the CBI into the case. The demand was granted by the CM on July 26 and the CBI sleuths took over the case on July 30.

The politics over it failed to stop with the Leader of Opposition in Bihar Legislative Assembly, Tejashwi Prasad Yadav, staging a dharna and a candlelight march at Delhi's Jantar Mantar, demanding justice to the victims, a court monitored inquiry and the resignation of SWD Minister Manju Verma, whose husband Chandeshwar Verma's name had popped up during the investigation.

Shiba Kumar, wife of an arrested child protection officer, Ravi Roshan, alleged that Chandeshwar frequented the shelter home.

Though Manju Verma initially denied any connection with Thakur and both Nitish and Sushil Modi backed her, when call records established contact between Chandeshwar and Thakur and the latter also confirmed that they talked about general things and politics, the minister tendered her resignation to the CM on August 8.

While the Bihar government is slowly, but steadily, initiating action against the institutions from where concerns have been flagged by the TISS team, it has not yet made the full report accessible to public.

Pitching for an institutional system of checks and balances, CM Nitish announced that shelter homes and other such institutions will be taken over by the state government. "The NGOs will no longer have anything to do with it. We will build the infrastructure and will take over such homes in a phasewise manner," said the Bihar CM. Posting of transgender guards is also being thought of by the government.

IN A FIRST, 10K SHELTER HOMES TO BE AUDITED

The central government has now ordered an audit of the 10,000-odd shelter homes across the country, which will be the first such attempt. Sources in the WCD ministry said that a third of the shelter homes have not even been registered. Of 7,189 child care institutions in the country, the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) found that 1,339 were unregistered. A mapping exercise, undertaken by the WCD ministry, in 2017, found that apart from these child care institutions, there were about 450 women welfare homes as well.

MUZAFFARPUR CASE TIMELINE

July 2017  Bihar government asks TISS team to conduct social audit of 110 government and non-government welfare institutions

October 2017   Seven-member TISS team arrives in Patna

April 27, 2018  TISS team submits its preliminary report, requests meeting with officials 

May 5 and 7  TISS team consults officials

May 9  TISS submits its final report via email

May 26  TISS team members make a presentation before SWD officials; government directs concerned officials to initiate action against erring facilities

May 31  First FIR lodged in connection with physical, mental and sexual abuse of girls at Balika Grih run by Sewa Sankalp Evam Vikas Samiti after the girls were evacuated from the home

June 2  Main accused, Brajesh Thakur, owner of the NGO, arrested from his house along with others

June 14  Balika Grih is sealed by the Bihar government

July 23  Police dig a portion of the Balika Grih campus to search for the “body of one of the residents” after a complaint by three girls

July 26  Bihar government recommends a CBI probe into the case

July 30  The CBI takes over the case and a second FIR is lodged in connection with 11 “missing women” from short-stay Swadhar home run by Thakur

August 3   Bihar CM Nitish Kumar speaks for the first time, terms the incident “shameful”  

August 4  Opposition parties stage demonstration and a candlelight march at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar against the Muzaffarpur incident

August 6  Patna High Court agrees to monitor the CBI inquiry 

August 8  Bihar SWD Minister Manju Verma resigns