Admitting laxity on part of authorities in Deoria vis-a-vis the shelter home controversy, Women and Child Welfare Minister Rita Bahuguna Joshi tried to shift the responsibility to the Opposition on Tuesday. She blamed the previous SP and BSP regimes for irregular activities in those homes.
Addressing media persons in lucknow on Tuesday, Joshi said: “After the BJP government came to power in 2017, the recognition of all illegal shelter homes run by NGOs were cancelled. Most of them opened during the SP and BSP rule.”
Further blaming the SP government for irregularities in shelter homes, Joshi disclosed that child welfare committees in all districts were represented by SP leaders and they were authorised to check the activities of those homes.
“In the Deoria case, one of the committee members Pratibha Srivastava was once an active member of the NGO which was running the shelter home. These committee members were appointed at the fag end of the SP regime,” she said. She said that the government had already initiated action against 70 such committee members for being engaged in illegal activities.
The child welfare committee members are supposed to inspect shelter homes at least 20 times in a month and a member gets Rs 1,500 per visit. “The SP has no moral right to agitate over the Deoria issue as it was their fault that led to the controversy even as the BJP government was doing everything to rectify it,” she said.
The minister also appeared to shift partial blame on the previous BSP government saying that the NGO running the shelter home - Ma Vindhyavasini Women Training Evam Samaj Seva Sansthan - was given work during BSP regime in 2010. “It was made girl, child centre, child home, adoption centre and given more work between 2010-2014 during the previous SP and BSP governments,” Joshi said.
The minister also hinted that of the 20 girls found in Deoria shelter home, 10 were reported to be adult while in medical examination sexual assault on some girls was confirmed.
At the conference, Joshi said that the role of Deoria police and other officials were being scrutinised by a high-level team, comprising Additional Chief Secretary (Women and Child Welfare) Renuka Kumar and ADG (Women Protection) Anju Gupta. “Reports from all districts will reach lucknow by this afternoon and the CM has summoned us to his office for a detailed discussion and action to be taken against erring officials and others at 6 pm,” Joshi said.
The minister informed that her department had sent at least 15 letters to officials concerned for closing the shelter home while DPO had issued 11 letters for the same. “We are also investigating how the police were sending children to the shelter home when it was ordered to be closed in June 2017. We are also trying to find the whereabouts of missing girls,” she said.
Claiming that the government would do whatever was required for punishing the guilty after a transparent probe, Joshi said that the government was also ready for a third party inspection of all shelter homes. She also said that the CM suggested that the government should run shelter homes and they should only be opened at divisional headquarters.