Bihar shelter home case: Supreme Court has pulled up Bihar government for not inspecting homes
The Bihar government of Nitish Kumar, caught in a shelter home rape horror, was shredded by the Supreme Court which questioned why there was no inspection of these homes. "Girls are raped left, right and centre," a furious court said.
The Supreme Court also ordered the removal of all videos and photographs of minors in rape cases from social media and directed the media not to use photos of underage rape survivors on print, electronic and social media.
The court was hearing the case involving the Muzaffarpur shelter home in which over 30 girls were raped, tortured and exploited over the past four years. Ten people have been arrested, including the home's politically well-connected owner Brajesh Thakur, whose no-profit runs other shelter homes.
"Every six hours a girl raped in the country," said the court, referring to data from the National Crime Records Bureau.
The highest, according to the bureau, is in Madhya Pradesh, followed by Uttar Pradesh.
"People, money are given to these NGOs managing shelter homes since 2013 but the Bihar government didn't inspect them," noted the top court.
Bihar said nine FIRs were filed and arrests were made and one person is missing. Some officers were suspended and are facing action, the court was told.
Amicus tells SC of the 41 girls rescued one girl is missing
The Tata Institute of Social Sciences, which exposed the shelter home rapes in a report, informed the court that 15 shelter homes had been red-flagged in its report, including the one in Muzaffarpur.