Muzaffarpur shelter home case: Six jailed for life

NEW DELHI: A Delhi court on Tuesday sentenced Brajesh Singh Thakur — who ran the children’s shelter home in Bihar’s Muzaffarpur district where 44 girls were sexually exploited — and five others to imprisonment for the rest of their lives and slapped Thakur with a fine of over Rs 32 lakh for committing sexual crimes.
Additional sessions judge Saurabh Kulshreshtha also sentenced five convicts in the case to life terms while handing 10-year terms to six others.Two more persons got relatively minor sentences. Thakur and 18 others, including nine women, were convicted on January 20 of committing or abetting sexual assault on 44 minor girls at the Muzaffarpur shelter.
The court said Thakur was the de-facto owner of the home, and managed and controlled its affairs. The 156-page sentencing order said this was not a solitary case of rape but a “meticulously planned” and “ingeniously executed” conspiracy where care-givers and administrators in the shelter home turned into “predators”.
The order noted that the minor girls were subjected to aggravated penetrative sexual assault over a span of about four years.
‘Thakur kingpin of shelter home conspiracy’
Calling Thakur the “kingpin” of the conspiracy, the court said, “The convict is not a young boy, but a mature, experienced politician charged with a plethora of crimes.”
Thakur, who was expected to display compassion and sobriety, betrayed the trust and faith of the girls living there, the judge observed. “It is not a fit case for adopting the reformative and therapeutic approach,” argued the court. “In this era, where protection of the girl child and emancipation of women are avowed societal objectives, it is lamentable that the minor girls housed in a statemonitored and state-funded children’s home... were subjected to such horrendous acts,” the court observed.
Given the rising number of sexual crimes against children, the offences had to be dealt with an iron hand to send a strong message, it added.