Muzaffarpur, Jan 2 (PTI) Brajesh Thakur, who allegedly sexually assaulted several girls at his shelter home in Bihar's Muzaffarpur district, was acquitted along with two of his associates by a special SC-ST court on Thursday due to "lack of evidence".

Thakur and his associates -- Shaista Praveen alias Madhu and Krishna Kumar -- will, however, remain in jail as they have been convicted by a Delhi court in 2020 and sentenced to life imprisonment in other cases related to the gruesome incidents that shook the conscience of the nation in 2018.

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The SC-ST court of Additional District and Sessions Judge Ajay Kumar Mall in Muzaffarpur acquitted them in the case related to missing 11 women and four girls "due to lack of evidence".

All three, serving life imprisonment for sexually and physically assaulting girls at the shelter home, were brought here from Delhi's Tihar jail amid heavy security.

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The affairs at the shelter home run by Seva Sankalp Aur Vikas Samiti, the non-profit helmed by politically-connected Thakur, came to light after the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) filed a report with the Bihar's Social Welfare Department, detailing horrifying sexual abuse cases.

More than 40 minor girls were allegedly sexually assaulted at the shelter home run by Thakur's state-funded non-profit.

Initially, the case was investigated by the Bihar Police but it was later handed over to the CBI by the Supreme Court.

The SC also moved the cases, except the one filed under the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act as the girls belonged to the marginalised communities, from Bihar to a court in Delhi.

The Delhi court, in its 3,100-page judgment, had convicted Thakur and 11 others, including nine women, of several offences. Among them were charges of aggravated penetrative sexual assault under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, and rape under the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

Soon after the acquittal of the three accused by the SC-ST court of Muzaffarpur, Madhu's lawyer Priya Ranjan said that there were a total of four accused in this case, and one of them died during trial.

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