AN enquiry team of CPI(ML)-AIPWA-AISA-RYA had visited the Aasra Shelter Home in Patna on 19 August 2018. The team has reported that on the basis of talks they had with the girls in the shelter home and with neighbouring people, it seems that the deaths of Babli (40 years) and Poonam (17 years) were not normal or natural deaths, but both were killed under a conspiracy. The role of the local Thana is also suspect in this matter.
The conditions at the Aasra Shelter Home are extremely horrifying. The girls residing there are living in fear. The girls came to the window-counter and told them that Babli Devi was ill and was taken for treatment between 3 pm and 4 pm on 10 August in Treasurer Manisha Dayal’s car. Poonam had gone with her to look after her. But the girls at the shelter home did not know about the deaths of Babli and Poonam till today. What happened within a span of 3 or 4 hours to cause the death of both the women? Clearly, they were killed under some conspiracy.
The team members spoke to neighbours also. Neetu Singh, residing right next door to the Aasra shelter home told them that on many days they hear sounds of the girls screaming and crying from the shelter home. The guard often beats them. They are neither given proper meals nor proper medical treatment. Her father Bajrangi Singh has been arrested by the police on charges of molesting the girls in the shelter home. Local people told the team members that Bajrangi Singh is 70 years old and is a vegetable vendor. When the girls in the Aasra shelter used to cry and scream a lot, he had given them a blade to cut open the window. Using this as an excuse, the police arrested him. Hundreds of local people had protested at the Thana against his arrest. Clearly there is a deep nexus between the local administration and those who run the Aasra shelter home, and Bajrangi Singh was falsely implicated through a conspiracy.
The women and girls living in the Aasra shelter home have appealed to the enquiry team members to remove them from there. Kanchan Kumari—d/o Janak Paswan, w/o Balindra Paswan, village Mirzapur, Thana Kalyanpur, Samastipur District—has been kept needlessly in the shelter for the past 6 months. She narrated her own story to the team members and requested them to convey her message to her family members.
The enquiry team has demanded that all the 52 inmates of the shelter home should be immediately shifted to some other safe and secure place; those inmates who want to go back to their homes should be sent back without delay; local resident Bajrangi Singh should be released.
The enquiry team said that these incidents could have been done in order to erase evidences in the shelter homes. They said that no fair and proper probe could be conducted while Nitish Kumar and Sushil Modi remain in their posts; therefore, these two should resign and a free and proper probe should be conducted.
The enquiry team comprised CPI(ML) Central Committee member Abhyuday, AIPWA Patna City Secretary Anita Sinha, RYA State Secretary Naveen Kumar, AISA State President Mokhtar, AIPWA leaders comrades Madhu, Kamala Devi, Meena Devi, and CPI(ML) leader Ram Kalyan Chaudhuri.
