Patna: Rail and road traffic was disrupted in several districts of Bihar on Thursday on account of a day-long bandh called by the Left organisations to protest against the Muzaffarpur shelter home sex scandal and the alleged atrocities against Dalits in the state.
Protesters clashed with police in the state capital and forced shops to close in some areas, while several public schools had already declared a holiday to avoid any inconvenience to their students and teachers. However, banks and government offices appeared to have normal attendance.
Several opposition parties including the RJD, the Congress, the Hindustani Awam Morcha and the Loktantri Janta Dal (floated by former JD(U) president Sharad Yadav) also lent their support to the bandh, which was seen by political observers as coming together of non-NDA parties ahead of the 2019 general elections. RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav, leader of the opposition in the state assembly, made a scathing attack on Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on the Muzaffarpur episode. He tweeted that by having shot off a couple of letters to Chief Minister, Governor Satya Pal Mallik has indirectly questioned CM's "criminal silence on the horrendous institutional rape case" but Kumar was still "deadly silent".
The tweet followed another one in Hindi wherein the RJD leader "vowed" to compel Nitish Kumar to open his mouth on Muzaffarpur rape case, awaken his "comatose conscience" and expose his "hypocritical claims of morality".
In Muzaffarpur, CPI(ML) workers staged a protest in front of the residence of Brajesh Thakur, patron of the state-funded NGO that was running the girl shelter home that has landed in a major controversy over alleged sexual assault of its inmates. Thakur has been arrested in connection with the scandal. After the Left activists left the place, a group of RJD workers were seen moving towards Thakur's residence but they were stopped by police.
Opposition leaders
have alleged that Thakur enjoyed patronage of the chief minister.
The alleged sexual exploitation of more than 30 girls at the centre first came to light in an audit report submitted by the Tata Institute of Social Science (TISS) to the state's social welfare department in April.