INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Patna: Brajesh Thakur, the politically-connected man arrested for the rape and torture of more than 30 girls at a shelter home in Bihar,
hasn't spent much time in prison and probably wasn't aware of the surprise checks conducted around Independence Day
So when a team of district administrators and police officers visited the jail hospital on Saturday, he wasn't on his bed but in the
visitors' area of the jail.They were surprised
So was he.A quick search led to the seizure of two pages from him
It was a list of names and mobile numbers of 40 people that an administration official says, indicates he still had been pulling some
strings.The officials did not find a mobile phone on him
This is why, he had to note down the phone numbers of people he could phone to call in a favour on the two sheets.News agency IANS said
names of some powerful people, including a minister, were on these two sheets
The document has been sealed and sent to the CBI, which has taken over investigations.On Saturday, CBI officials questioned Brajesh Thakur's
son and have already called for his medical reports.Thakur was arrested on June 2, but hasn't really been interrogated by the police because
he was quickly sent to jail by the judge.It is here that the doctors, on paper, appear to have discovered that he had ailments which
required medical attention
After spending more than two weeks in a hospital outside, he was sent back to the jail hospital.Officials said it wasn't still clear how he
had been making the phone calls
If he was using one of the landlines at the jail superintendent's office or someone's mobile phone.Of the 70 days that Thakur has spent in
custody, he has spent only five-six days in the Muzaffarpur central prison's jail cell.Thakur, whose NGO ran many shelter homes, is one of
the 10-odd people arrested for the rape, beatings and torture of girls, some as young as seven, over the past four years.The girls were
drugged, raped, forced to sleep naked and scalded with boiling water by Thakur and his staff, a police charge-sheet has revealed.Chief
Minister Nitish Kumar had handed over the case of the Central Bureau of Investigation when the case appeared to be getting too hot
Mr Kumar's social welfare minister had to quit this week after pressure mounted on the government over reports that her husband had close
links with Brajesh Thakur.Leader of the opposition Tejashwi Yadav is building pressure on Nitish Kumar over this case, wondering why the
police never moved the high court to seek Brajesh Thakur's custodial interrogation
A junior judge had asked the police to question him in the jail.Mr Yadav, who went public with a list of 20 questions for Nitish Kumar,
underlined that the Chief Minister should come clean on the officials who had paid lakhs of rupees for advertising to Thakur's newspaper
that only published 200-400 copies.
