A fresh medical report has confirmed that 5 more inmates of the state-funded shelter home for girls in Bihar's Muzzafarpur were raped.
Medical examinations of 29 of the 42 shelter home inmates had earlier confirmed that they were sexually exploited. The new report has now verified the number of victims is at least 34, according to the NDTV.
The shelter home was sealed in June this year when an FIR was lodged in the light of a social audit report which suggested that inmates were being sexually exploited. 10 of the 11 accused have been arrested so far.
The NGO running the shelter home has been blacklisted and all the girls been shifted to shelter homes in other districts while the premises here have been sealed.
Members of the state women commission who met the rescued victims said the girls were drugged before they were sexually assaulted and were starved and beaten up if they rebelled, reported the Hindustan Times.
"At the shelter home they were denied food and clothes and were beaten with shoes,” the report quoted Dilmani Mishra, state women commission chairperson as saying.
A former inmate of the shelter home had also alleged that a co-resident was beaten to death and buried in the premises when she resisted sexual exploitation, and several other girls were raped, prompting the Bihar police to dig up the courtyard to look for the body. The excavation has been stopped and the pit has been filled up.
Chief minister Nitish Kumar, on Friday, recommended a CBI probe into the matter after growing outrage against the state government by the opposition.
Kumar's deputy Sushil Kumar Modi said the state government would request the Patna High Court to monitor the probe.
Opposition MLAs had paralysed the state Assembly for three days with their vociferous demands for a high court-monitored CBI probe into the scandal. They also demanded that the state Social Welfare Minister Manju Verma be sacked.
(Inputs from agencies)
