Shelter home scandal: Man remanded to 5 days in CBI custody

A court here on Friday sent Dilip Verma, an accused in the shelter home sex scandal who surrendered the previous day after absconding for long, to five days in CBI custody.

Two other accused were acquitted by the court of special POCSO judge R P Tiwari.

Verma is a former Child Welfare Committee chairman whom the inmates of the shelter home had accused of sexual misconduct in their statements recorded by the probe agency.

Initially the police and later the CBI conducted a number of raids in various districts over the past few months in search of him. He surrendered before the court on Thursday.

Two other arrested accused - Gaurav Kumar alias Motu and Santosh Kumar - were acquitted by the court as their names did not figure in the charge sheet filed by the CBI earlier this week.

They were arrested after the CBI took over the probe five months ago.

They were employed at a printing press owned by Brajesh Thakur, the prime accused in the scandal who owned the NGO which ran the shelter home.

Thakur, who was arrested by police in May, is currently lodged in a jail at Patiala, Punjab, where he was shifted upon a direction from the Supreme Court.

The scandal had come to light after a report of social audit conducted by Mumbai-based Tata Institute of Social Sciences flagged sexual abuse of girls lodged at the shelter home.

The state-funded shelter home has since been shut down and all the inmates were shifted elsewhere. The building which housed the care unit is being demolished by municipal authorities as it was found to have been constructed flouting norms.

A case of money laundering has also been slapped against Thakur whose wife and son have been asked to appear before the Enforcement Directorate at Patna next week.