At least 26 women have gone missing from two shelter homes in Uttar Pradesh’s Pratapgarh district on Wednesday. The matter came to light during a surprise inspection of the shelter homes by District Magistrate Shambhu Kumar, the Hindustan Times reported on Thursday.
“A team was constituted to inquire into the anomalies at the women’s shelters,” Kumar said.
The team first inspected a women’s shelter at Achalpur. Though 15 women were registered in the documents, 12 of them were absent. Neha Praveen, the shelter’s superintendent, claimed the women had gone to work. However, the shelter’s accounts register was missing and there are no CCTVs on the premises.
The team then inspected Swadhar Jagriti Grih at Ashtbhuja Nagar, where 14 of the 17 registered women were missing. The shelter is run by former district Bharatiya Janata Party Mahila Morcha chief Rama Mishra, PTI reported. The shelter’s manager claimed that the women were out on private work. However, the shelter did not have even their photographs.
The inspections were part of a statewide campaign to examine shelter homes following the rescue of 24 girls from a shelter in Deoria on Sunday. Chief Minister Adityanath on Tuesday admitted that the administration had failed to shut down the shelter, and recommended a Central Bureau of Investigation inquiry. The police have arrested the shelter’s manager.
The Pratapgarh incident comes weeks after at least 34 girls were found to have been raped at a shelter in Bihar’s Muzaffarpur. The police have arrested 10 people and registered a case against 100 unidentified people for hindering the government’s work, ANI reported.
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