A 19-year-old girl has alleged sexual abuse, trafficking, torture, disappearance under mysterious circumstances and murder of inmates at Uttar Raksha Grih (after care home) in Bihar capital in what could turn into another ignominious incident on the lines of the infamous Muzaffarpur girl shelter home scandal.

The Uttar Raksha Grih at the Gai Ghat in Patna is the only facility of its kind run by the social welfare department of the state government for girls and young adult women over 18 years of age. Destitute girls, victims of human trafficking, those who have been discharged from children’s homes or special homes after attaining adulthood, or girls special needs, including mentally and physically challenged ones, are kept there. At present, there are 260 such inmates there.

The girl was working as a maid in a locality in Patna after being released from the after care home around three months ago. She approached Mahila Vikas Sangh (MVS), a civil society organisation working for women, on January 29 to seek work.

She broke down in front of MVS members during counseling and narrated the ordeal she faced during her seven-month stay at the after care home.

The organisation took her to the women’s police station twice since then to lodge an FIR, but it was not registered on various pretexts. Seeking justice, the MVS members and the victim then talked to journalists earlier this week.

“One night, soon after being sent to the after care home, I took my dinner and lost my consciousness. The next morning I found that my clothes were not in proper position and my waist and pelvis was aching. The other girls there told me that I was sexually abused after being sedated,” the victim said.

“Girls were given sedatives and men from outside would be allowed to come inside the after care home and sexually abuse them. The girls were afraid of Vandana Gupta, the superintendent. Those who objected were tortured, killed, or mysteriously disappeared. Some girls including one from Bangladesh suffered this fate,” she added.

Video clips of the girl talking about her ordeal at the after care home went viral on social media platforms and forced the state government to take notice of it. The social welfare department conducted some hurried enquiry into the issue on the basis of footage from CCTV cameras installed there. Though the FIR was still not registered, it gave a clean chit to the aftercare home superintendent.

MVS national president Arunima Kumari asserted that the organisation would now do everything so that the girl gets justice and reform in the existing system.

“We have decided to fight to the finish after failing to register an FIR. The police kept making frivolous excuses. The government officials and the social welfare department also did not take any action in the matter. But we still have faith in the judicial system of our country,” Arunima told The Telegraph.

The Patna High Court took suo motu cognisance of the matter on Wednesday. The division bench of Chief Justice Sanjay Karol and Justice S. Kumar questioned why no FIR was registered despite the allegations by the girl. It also expressed dissatisfaction with the inquiry conducted by the social welfare department only on the basis of CCTV footage, without meeting the girl.

“The aforesaid news is yet again societal/ collective failure and shame in not containing such offences even after this state and the nation read about the happenings in Balika Grih, Muzaffarpur,” the high court bench observed in its oral order.

Asserting that it was “thoroughly dissatisfied with the report of the social welfare department director, the bench said: “There is a lurking fear in our minds that if such kind of offences against humanity is not contained the promises under the Constitution would be rendered completely meaningless and hollow.”

The high court has passed several recommendations to improve the facilities at the after care home and has listed matter for further hearing on February 7. The government has been asked to file a compliance affidavit.

The Muzaffarpur shelter home for girls shot into notoriety in 2018 after an audit report by the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) revealed gross sexual abuse, rape and torture of the girls lodged there. Further medical examination revealed that 34 of the 42 inmates were sexually abused.

An FIR was registered and the case was later handed over to the CBI. Altogether 12 persons, including the main accused Brajesh Thakur, whose non-government organisation ran the shelter home in Muzaffarpur, were subsequently sentenced to life.

Meanwhile, after the high court strictures, the social welfare department called the girl in person on Friday to give a statement and spent over two hours recording it.

When contacted, social welfare department director Raj Kumar told this newspaper: “There is nothing in the case. The girl is lying, perhaps under the influence of some people. She is mentally distressed and seems to be suffering from hallucinations. She is also heaping stigma on the inmates of the after care home.”

Kumar further said that the “two Bangladeshi girls about whom she (the victim) is talking was repatriated to their country on the orders of the Patna high court. We are going to present all the facts before the honourable justices.”

However, social welfare department officials went to the after care home to install new CCTV cameras and connect them to a central server so that their feed could be stored for three months. The present cameras at the place and the connected computer systems can store video only for seven days.

This raises doubt about the very enquiry conducted by the social welfare department into the matter as it was based on CCTV camera footage.