CBI registers FIRs in four more Bihar shelter home cases (Lead, with Corrections)

The CBI has registered four more FIRs over alleged abuse of children in four shelter homes across Bihar, an official said on Thursday.

Of those, two shelter homes are in Munger and one each in Gaya and Bhagalpur. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) registered these FIRs on Wednesday.

According to the FIR, these shelter homes were being run in violation of provisions of the Juvenile Justice Act 2015, besides being involved in financial irregularities.

On November 28 last year, the Supreme Court had asked the CBI to probe the alleged abuse of inmates at 17 shelter homes in Bihar listed in a study conducted by the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS).

Most of these shelter homes are for boys. Preliminary inquiry conducted by TISS revealed that the women staffers of these shelter homes asked the boys to send lewd messages to other women.

TISS had claimed in its report that the boys in the shelter homes were forced to work for respective superintendents whose residential quarters would be in the same premises.

The CBI had on Tuesday also registered four FIRs against different shelter homes that included Samaj Samiti Boys' Children Home in Bhagalpur and House Mother of Children Home in Gaya for allegedly physically and mentally assaulting the inmates.

These actions are in addition to the CBI's ongoing probe into the case of sexual exploitation of minor girls at a Muzaffarpur shelter home in which the CBI has registered two separate FIRs.

The Muzaffarpur case caught national attention last year after the TISS study highlighted that of the 42 girls lodged at the short-stay home run by an NGO, 34 were found to have been sexually assaulted. The shelter home was being run by Brajesh Thakur.

An FIR was lodged against 11 people, including Thakur, on May 31. The probe was later taken over by the CBI.

--IANS

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