Days after two girls were brought dead from Aasra shelter home to Patna Medical College and Hospital (PMCH), another two girls from the shelter home were on Monday admitted to the hospital.
Superintendent of Police, Rajeev Ranjan confirmed the news stating that two more girls have been admitted in PMCH.
The Bihar Police on Sunday detained shelter home secretary and treasurer in connection with the death of two women at Patna's 'Aasra Home' and sent them to three-day police custody. The police had earlier also detained five others in connection with the same case.
The incident came to light on August 12, following the death of two women, aged 17 and 40, from a shelter home in Patna's Rajiv Nagar during treatment at PMCH, but neither the police nor the Social Welfare Department was informed of the same. Later, a medical board was also constituted to investigate the death of the two women at the state-run 'Aasra Home'.
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Patna District Magistrate, Kumar Ravi had said that the prima facie of the incident revealed that the women had 'fever and diarrhea', but were brought dead to the hospital.
The deaths in the Patna-based shelter home coming close on the heels of the Muzaffarpur shelter home sexual abuse case has caught national attention once again on sorry state of affairs in the government-funded centres managed by the social welfare department.
Asked about reports that the concerned police stations were not informed about the deaths even though post-mortem was conducted at the Patna Medical College Hospital in presence of two sub-inspectors, the IG said there was "no lapse".
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"The problem arose because those who got the two women admitted to the hospital only entered the address without mentioning that they had been staying at a shelter home. This prevented the sub-inspectors from realising the gravity of the matter at hand," Khan said.
"We are also awaiting the forensic report on the viscera of the two deceased," he said, adding that as per norms, police have written to the Indian Medical Association that it needs to take into custody a doctor attached to the shelter home, named in the FIR, and expressed confidence that the fourth accused - an auxiliary nurse midwife - would be "nabbed soon".
Meanwhile, a controversy arose with pictures of the glamorous-looking former model Dayal with a number of senior leaders of political parties going viral.
The photographs were purportedly taken from her Facebook account, which was deactivated this afternoon. In the photographs, Dayal could be seen sharing space with senior JD(U) MLA Shyam Rajak, state minister and BJP leader Vinod Narayan Jha and RJD legislator Shivchandra Ram.
All the leaders, however, told regional news channels that being public figures they were required to meet many people whom they did not know properly.
Some reports claimed that Dayal was a close relative of the wife of senior RJD leader Abdul Bari Siddiqui. Talking to a news portal, Siddiqui acknowledged that he had known Dayal for quite some time but denied any family ties with her.
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Meanwhile, Bihar Congress working president Kaukab Qadri expressed alarm on the Patna shelter home incident, which comes close on the heels of the Muzaffarpur sex scandal.
In a statement, he asked the Nitish Kumar government to "cancel the outsourcing of all shelter homes to NGOs and take up the responsibility for administration of these".
(Agencies)
