Bihar social welfare minister Manju Verma resigns over Muzaffarpur shelter home rape scandal

PATNA: Bihar minister Manju Verma has resigned over allegations against her husband, who is accused of links to the Muzaffarpur shelter rape horror. The police say call records confirm that minister Manju Verma's husband was regularly in touch with the man who ran the shelter home in Muzaffarpur in which over 30 girls were raped and tortured. Seventeen calls were exchanged between them this year, say sources.

The call records also establish that between October and May, the minister's husband, Chandeshwar Verma, visited the shelter home nine times, each time for several hours.

Confronted with evidence, the minister had admitted that her husband was in touch with Brajesh Thakur, whose NGO ran the shelter home where girls were raped, beaten, assaulted and exploited over four years.

Minister has accepted her husband used to speak to Thakur but said they didn't realize he was a



criminal.

The role of the minister's husband came under scrutiny when the wife of an arrested child protection officer demanded an investigation against him.

Shibha Kumari, wife of Muzaffarpur Child Protection Officer Ravi Roshan, alleged that the minister's husband used to visit the shelter home frequently.'

An initial analysis of the CDR or Call Data Records of main accused has not yet revealed whether he spoke to the minister's husband after the scandal broke out.

On Monday, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and his deputy Sushil Modi had ruled out the resignation of Manju Verma, who is the state's Social Welfare minister.

They said there were "no incriminating documents" to merit her resignation. "She will resign when anything that suggests wrongdoing on her part comes up," said Nitish Kumar at a press conference in Patna.