Bihar shelter home rapes: Restrain from revealing identity of victims, SC to media

The Supreme Court on Thursday restrained the electronic media from telecasting images and videos of minor rape victims from Bihar's Muzaffarpur district shelter home.

A bench of Justice Madan B. Lokur and Justice Deepak Gupta taking suo motu cognisance of the incident after a man from Bihar wrote a letter to it, sought a response from the Ministry of Women and Child Development, Bihar government.

The court also sought assistance from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS).

The bench expressed concern over the identity of child rape victims being revealed by print and electronic media and said that even a morphed picture should not be published.

The Muzaffarpur shelter home case came to light earlier this year when the Bihar Social Welfare Department filed an FIR based on a social audit of the shelter home conducted by TISS.

The CBI on Sunday took over the shelter home rapes case following a recommendation by Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who has described it as "a heinous crime".

--IANS

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