Brajesh Thakur, the arrested proprietor of the NGO that ran the Muzaffarpur shelter home where 34 underage girls were raped, is likely to be hit with a fresh case for allegedly tampering with the documents to rent out his residential premises on Sahu Road in the district headquarters town to run the government-funded Balika Grih.

Muzaffarpur district magistrate (DM) Mohammad Sohail has directed the registration department sub-registrar to initiate legal action against Brajesh, whose NGO, Seva Sankalp Evam Vikas Samiti, ran the shelter home.

The action follows the purported secretary of the NGO, Ramesh Kumar, denying that he had ever held the post. “I have been working in New Delhi for the last 25 years. I had never been associated with any NGO. I visit my native village in Muzaffarpur occasionally,” Ramesh is learnt to have told interrogators.

Ramesh is stated to be a cousin of Brajesh, a native of Panchdahi in Muzaffarpur district. Authoritative sources said Brajesh is suspected to have tampered with the documents to rent out his premises to the NGO. The four-storey building that housed the Balika Grih is owned by Brajesh’s mother, Manorama Devi.

The Muzaffarpur DM has already ordered the confiscation as well as demolition of illegal properties owned by Brajesh’s wife, Asha, who is also a member of the NGO. Other members of the NGO have also been asked to submit details of their property, and around 30 vehicles registered in the name of the NGO and its members are also to be seized by the court. The Muzaffarpur municipal corporation has ordered partial demolition of the building which housed the shelter home as it violated building bylaws.“As per the building map approved by the corporation, only G+1 building was approved. However, the building was found to be over 50 feet high,” said a senior official of the corporation.

The Central Bureau of Investigation is probing the shelter home, while the Supreme Court and Patna High Court are monitoring the investigation. On the apex court’s direction, Brajesh was recently shifted to Patiala jail in Punjab from Bhagalpur Central Jail.

The Supreme Court has also pulled up the state government asking its officials to explain in person why former social welfare minister Kumari Manju Verma, whose husband’s name has cropped up in the investigation, was still untraceable. The apex court has termed the details of the case, submitted by CBI, as “shocking, horrible and scary”.