ED granted court's permission to interrogate Brajesh Thakur

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) was on Saturday granted permission from a special court to interrogate Brajesh Thakur, the prime accused in the Muzaffarpur shelter home sex scandal case.

A Special POCSO court granted permission to the ED to question Thakur on assets.

ED's Special Public Prosecutor Manoj Kumar filed a petition in the court of Special POCSO judge R P Tiwari seeking permission to interrogate Thakur, currently lodged in Patiala jail, in the case.

Earlier, all the 17 accused persons including Brajesh Thakur were produced in the special POCSO court through video conferencing facility.

The court fixed January 17 as the next date of hearing in the matter.

The scandal at the shelter home called 'Balika Grih', run by Brajesh Thakur's NGO 'Seva Sankalp Evam Vikas Samiti', had come to light in early 2018 in a social audit by the Mumbai-based Tata Institute of Social Sciences, which said that over 30 girls living in it were sexually abused.

Following the expose, Brajesh Thakur and others were booked on May 30, 2018.

The Bihar government later handed over the probe to the CBI. Then Bihar Social Welfare Minister Manju Verma had resigned following the Muzaffarpur shelter home case.