By Niwedita
Press Information Bureau (PIB) Director General Sitanshu Kar has said suitable action will be taken against the PIB accredited journalist Brajesh Kumar alias Brajesh Thakur arrested in the infamous Muzaffarpur shelter home rape case.
Talking to this correspondent, Mr Kar said he was not aware, till now, that Mr Thakur was a journalist who had PIB accreditation. “I will go through the file pertaining to his accreditation from PIB on the next working day and will take suitable action in the issue,” Mr Kar said.
According to PIB list of accredited journalist Brajesh Kumar’s name stands at serial number 422 as correspondent of Pratah Kamal.
Pratah Kamal is the Hindi language daily, published from Muzaffarpur owned by Brajesh Kumar.
Brajesh and his late father Radha Mohan Thakur (Founding Editor) clout in the PIB was so strong that he was also allotted a government accommodation under the PIB accredited journalist quota in a posh locality of the National capital, from where Brajesh used to run his Delhi office.
The non-governmental organisation (NGO) running the shelter home, where inmates were being sexually assaulted, was run by Brajesh. He along with 10 others is currently behind bars in this case.
The sexual assault at the state-run shelter home came to light after Mumbai-based Tata Institute of Social Sciences submitted a report, based on conversations with several girls at the home.
After pressure from the opposition, the state government on Thursday handed over the investigation into the alleged sexual assault to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
The NGO running the shelter home has been blacklisted and all the girls have been shifted to homes in neighboring districts.
Meanwhile, according to afresh medical report, the number of girls raped at the shelter home has gone up to 34. Earlier, medical examination of 29 of the 42 inmates of the shelter home in Muzaffarpur district confirmed that they were raped for months.
