Patna, August 12: A list of 40 mobile phone numbers was recovered by Bihar Police on Saturday from Brajesh Thakur, the main accused in the rape of 34 minor girls in the shelter home in Muzaffarpur. Thakur has been lodged in the Muzaffarpur Central Jail, and the raids took place across the jails in the state, simultaneously, said the police.

According to a report in the English daily the Hindustan Times, the police informed that Thakur was spotted in the visitors’ area of the jail by the officers. The report also mentioned that the police found "two handwritten pages" which had over 40 mobile phone numbers and the names of the customers the cards were issued against.

The report quoted a district administration official saying that names of some influential people, including the name of a minister, were mentioned on the pages that were found by the police, during the raid in jails.

Multiple raids were conducted by Bihar Police on Saturday, in more than dozen of jails in the state, and many items were reportedly recovered which should not have been in the possession of the prisoners, like mobile phones and sharp objects, just to name a few.

On Saturday, following day-long interrogation of Rahul Anand, the son of Brajesh Thakur who ran the NGO in Muzaffarpur where over 30 girls were raped, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) took him into custody.

The CBI sleuths reached at Thakur's Sahu Road residence at 10am in the morning. At nearly 8pm, reports said, the investigators came out taking Anand along with them. The agency is likely to seek his judicial custody.

The Bihar shelter home rape case came under the spotlight following a report by Tata Institute of Social Sciences, which detected large-scale complaints of sexual exploitation of the girl inmates. Last month, 11 employees of the shelter home were arrested and 44 girls were rescued.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Aug 12, 2018 01:13 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).