Brajesh Thakur (Muzaffarpur Shelter Case)

Some Lesser Known Facts About Brajesh Thakur

• Brajesh Thakur is a former Indian journalist and politician. In 2018, he was arrested by the Bihar police for being the main culprit in Muzaffarpur Shelter Home Rape Case.

• In 1982, his father started a Hindi newspaper named Pratah Kamal. His father used his newspaper to make profits by blackmailing people and making relations with various politicians. Soon, his father became popular in Muzzafarpur and chairman of All India Small and Medium News Papers Society. However, his father was once arrested in a newsprint scam.

  

• Reportedly, a leading media house found out that Pratah Kamal used to sell 300 copies a day, but Brajesh’s father used to claim that they sold more than 60,000 copies of newspapers daily to get more advertisements and funds for the newspaper. According to the sources, Brajesh’s father was allocated funds of Rs 40 lakh annually from the government for the advertisements. ^[8]The Indian Express

• After his father’s demise, Brajesh became the owner of the newspaper press. He also became the editor and publisher of Pratah Kamal. Later, he got a Press Information Bureau accreditation. ^[9]The Economic Times

• Gradually, he became good friends with various politicians and was photographed with a few leading politicians of Bihar. Reportedly, in 2005, Bihar CM Nitish Kumar attended the birthday party of Brajesh’s son Rahul Anand.

  

• With the help of the Indian politician Anand Mohan, he contested in the 1995 assembly elections from the Kurhani assembly seat of Muzaffarpur from Anand Mohan’s party Bihar People’s Party. He lost by a great margin to RJD candidate Basavan Bhagat and got only 202 votes. In 2000, he contested assembly elections from Kurhani and lost for the second time. He got 32,795 votes and Basavan Bhagat got 48,343 votes.

• With his political influence, he started getting tenders for various projects like shelter homes and public toilets. He then started various NGOs including Balika Griha in Muzaffarpur (started in 2013) adjoining his newspaper press.

  

• In 2012, he started an English newspaper News Nest and an Urdu newspaper Haalat-e-Bihar.

• During a routine survey in the NGOs, a female official visited Balika Griha in 2017. In the NGO, she noticed that the girls were crying and wanted to say something, but they hesitated infront of the staff of the NGO. The female officer requested the Bihar government in her survey to check the working of the NGO as she felt there was something wrong in the NGO. However, her survey report was neglected due to the political connections of Brajesh.

• In March 2018, the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) Mumbai (led by Mohd Tarique) organised a survey of NGOs in Bihar under their Koshish Project. During their visit there, they talked to girls alone.

  

• The girls were so depressed with their lives in the NGO that they shared all the sufferings they were facing there. The girls said that they were being sexually abused by some people in the NGO. In May 2018, the TISS team made a survey report in which they mentioned girls’ condition in the NGO and requested immediate action against them. However, just like before, this report was not taken into consideration.

• Instead of taking some strict action, in the same year, Brajesh Thakur was allocated lakhs of funds by the Bihar government for his NGOs.

• In 2018, after a girl went missing from the NGO, an FIR was filed in the local police station. People also speculated that the girl was killed by NGO people and was buried in the premises of an NGO.

• When the girls of the shelter home were investigated by the local police, they talked about the physical abuse of girls in the NGO. They were also interviewed by a few local news reporters.

• Even the TISS team talked to the media houses and talked about their survey report. Soon, this became a big news and media houses started pressuring the Bihar government to take some strict action against the NGO owner.

• On 25 May 2018, the Bihar government finally reviewed the TISS reports and around 42 girls were immediately rescued from the NGO and were shifted to some other shelter homes in Madhubani, Patna, and Mokama.

  

• Later, the statements of 42 girls were recorded in the presence of the magistrate. According to the statement of one of the victims,
  

  Brijesh killed one girl and put her in a tank. Brijesh through (two other victims) and Meenu Aunty got a mentally challenged girl killed. Brijesh had told them, “If you don’t kill her, I will kill you.” Brijesh killed her by stepping on her neck and (the two others) and Meenu had held her limbs. After the death, Meenu Aunty had her thrown into a gunny bag. I saw through a window. If someone asked, it was told that a dog has died.”

• They were then medically examined at Patna Medical College Hospital (PMCH). As per the medical report, out of 42 girls, 34 girls were sexually abused and abortion by a few girls was confirmed. Even a few girls went missing from the NGO and it was assumed that the girls were killed by the NGO owner Brajesh Thakur and buried somewhere in the premises of the NGO. A team of local police was sent to the Balika Giha to dig the premises of the NGO to find out the remains of the bodies.

  

• On 31 May 2018, an FIR was filed against Brajesh Thakur and 11 other accused in a local police station. The accused were:

1. Brajesh Thakur: Owner of the shelter home, accused of raping the girls in the shelter home

   

2. Shaista Parveen alias Madhu: Manager at the NGO Seva Sankalp and Vikas Samiti, forced girls to wear revealing clothes and dance to adult songs

   

3. Ravi Kumar Roshan: Child Protection Officer (CPO), was accused of rape
4. Vikas Kumar: Member of the Child Welfare Committee (CWC), gave sleeping pills to the girls and was accused of sexual abuse
5. Dilip Kumar Verma: Chairman of the Child Welfare Committee (CWC); accused of sexual abuse
6. Rosie Rani: Assistant director of the Child Protection Unit, ignored girls’ request to help them
7. Dr. Prameela: Doctor of the girls; knowingly ignored girls’ medical condition
8. Ramashankar Singh aka Master Saheb: Manager of the newspaper press owned by Brajesh, sexually abused girls
9. Dr Ashwani alias Asmani: Doctor of girls, used to traumatise girls
10. Vijay Kumar Tiwari, Guddu, and Krishna Ram: Servants of Brajesh, involved in the sexual abuse of girls
11. Indu Kumari, Meenu Devi, Chanda Devi, Neha Kumari, Hema Masih, and Kiran Kumari: Employees of the shelter home, were accused of drugging the girls and assaulting them
12. Manju Verma: A politician, accused of supporting Brajesh as her husband was one of the men involved in the sexual abuse of girls. She resigned from the post of Minister of Social Welfare in Bihar on 8 August 2018.

    

• The Supreme Court of India took a Suo Moto cognizance (it means when the courts in India take a case on their own) of the case on 2 August 2018.

• The NGO was sealed on 14 June 2018 by Bihar’s Women and Child Development Ministry, and later, the case was transferred to CBI.

• In 2018, after the arrest of Brajesh, he said that he was planning to join Congress. He said,
  

  I was thinking of joining the Congress and it was almost final that I will contest elections from Muzaffarpur. That is the reason why I have been unnecessarily framed in the case. None of the girls (inmates of the shelter home) has taken my name. You can check that yourself.”

• In February 2019, at the request of CBI, the Supreme Court transferred the case from a local court to the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) court at Saket District Court in Delhi with an instruction to conclude the trial within six months.

• In the 1546-page judgement, the POCSO court sentenced life imprisonment to Brajesh for offences under Indian Penal Code sections 120-B (criminal conspiracy), 324 (causing hurt by dangerous weapons or means), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt) and those relating to abetment, Section 21 (failure to report the commission of an offence) of the POCSO Act and Section 75 (cruelty to child) of the Juvenile Justice Act.”

  

• The shelter home case created a rage among the people for ignoring the case for so long and not taking appropriate actions timely. People protested with candle marches at different places to support the victims. The resignation of Bihar CM Nitish Kumar was also demanded by the people.

  

• In 2018, while Brajesh was on the premises of the court for his hearing, a woman threw black ink on his face.

  

• A Hindi film titled ‘Nafisa’ based on the shelter home case was announced in 2023.

  

• In 2024, the Indian actor Aditya Srivastava (famous as Senior Inspector Abhijeet in the TV show CID), portrayed Brajesh Thakur in the Netflix Hindi film ‘Bhakshak.’