A 27-year-old inmate of a shelter home for women with mental illnesses in Patna died on Friday, PTI reported. The death came three weeks after police began investigations into the deaths of two other women from the facility. Two inmates of the shelter were reported missing on Thursday, Station House Officer Rohan Kumar said.
Superintendent of Police Rajeev Ranjan Prasad said the inmate died at the Patna Medical College and Hospital after she was admitted in a critical condition. “She had been complaining of breathlessness and was severely anaemic,” Prasad told PTI.
The station house officer said a first information report had been filed at the Rajeev Nagar police station in the case involving the missing inmates. Both of them are in their early thirties, he said.
On August 13, the police had arrested the shelter’s manager Chirantan Kumar and the facility’s secretary Manisha Dayal as part of the investigation into the deaths. The police also booked a doctor and an auxiliary nurse midwife who worked at the shelter.
The Bihar Social Welfare Department sent its personnel to take over operations at the shelter soon after the arrests.
The incidents at the Patna shelter followed the Muzaffarpur shelter home rape case, where 34 girls were allegedly sexually assaulted. The wife of an accused official claimed that the husband of state social welfare department minister Manju Verma frequently visited the Muzaffarpur shelter home and “spent long hours” in the girls’ room, the Hindustan Times reported.
Following the controversies surrounding the shelters, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar had announced his decision to phase out funding to non-governmental organisations that run such facilities.
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