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‘Sexual assault’ at child shelter: Probe report under scanner
The boy’s mother has claimed that her son went missing days after she brought him home from the shelter. She said the committees gave a clean chit to all without recording the statement of her son.
PRAYAGRAJ: A report by two committees constituted last Thursday to probe the allegations of sexual assault on a boy at an NGO-run child shelter in the city’s Rajruppur area is raising doubts over its veracity.
The boy’s mother has claimed that her son went missing days after she brought him home from the shelter. She said the committees gave a clean chit to all without recording the statement of her son.
The incident that allegedly took place in August came to light during a recent meeting of the child welfare committee. District magistrate Sanjay Khatri constituted two teams under a magistrate and DPO Pankaj Mishra for a probe into the allegations.
The minor’s mother lives in the Shahganj area. She claimed that she had gone to the shelter to meet her son in August when she found blood stains on his pants, following which she brought him home. However, the boy fled a few days later.
Meanwhile, two teams constituted for investigations into the allegations submitted their reports to the DM claiming that the allegations were not true.
DPO Pankaj Mishra said that the statement of 26 other children were recorded who did not make any such allegations.
He also alleged, “The woman who brought the allegations is the boy’s stepmother, who chained and beat him up. This is why he had previously run away from home and was arrested for a crime. He was produced before the juvenile justice board, which instructed to keep the minor at child shelter instead of handing him over to the mother.”
The DPO said the boy’s mother made allegations of sexual harassment on her son on August 18. But the CWC did not inform the issue to the district magistrate at the time. “The CWC did not take steps to conduct medical examination of the boy when his mother made allegations,” he claimed.
Even though the boy has been missing for 13 days, police complaint of him missing was yet to be lodged.
Meanwhile, CWC-Prayagraj president Akhilesh Mishra said conducting medical examination was not under his jurisdiction. “Police conduct medical examination and missing complaint should be lodged by the boy’s mother. The mother has been called twice after she took the boy with him. She informed us about the disappearance of the boy on Friday,” he added.
