Patna: A 41-year-old woman and a 17-year-old girl died on Friday night at Aasra, a shelter home for women with mental disabilities, throwing up fresh questions over

conditions at such government-funded welfare facilities in Bihar.

The deaths come on the heels of the shelter home rapes in Muzaffarpur that have shamed the state.

The woman and the girl had been taken to Patna Medical College and Hospital (PMCH) with high fever and diarrhoea. "Both the inmates were brought dead on Friday night," said Rajiv Ranjan Prasad, the PMCH medical superintendent. "The post-mortem was carried out on Saturday."

The woman has been cremated but the post-mortem was being re-conducted on the girl's body on Sunday evening.

"We got to know of the deaths only on Sunday,"

said Patna senior superintendent of police (SSP)

Manu Maharaaj. "The second post-mortem is being done (on the girl) to avoid any suspicion over (cause of) death. The autopsy reports are awaited."

He added that the second post-mortem was not required on the woman's

body as the police have

already conducted an inquest.

Patna district magistrate Kumar Ravi and SSP Maharaaj visited the shelter home, located in a three-storey rented building at Nepali Nagar in the

Rajiv Nagar area, on Sunday. The cops detained for interrogation several the employees of Anumaya Human Resources Foundation, the NGO that runs Aasra, including secretary Chirantan Kumar and treasurer Manisha Dayal.

Four girls had tried to run away from Aasra on Friday, allegedly because a man who lived in an adjacent building tried to lure them away. The man has been arrested.

The social welfare department had in April this year entrusted the Foundation with running the home. There are 75 inmates at the shelter, and most of them have mental disabilities.

DM Ravi said: "We are investigating the case from various angles such as medical history of the victims and cause of death."

There are several unanswered questions over the deaths, including why the Aasra staff did not inform any doctor about the duo's illness. The police too were not informed about the health of the two inmates when the cops visited the shelter home on Friday after four inmates tried to escape.

Also, the staff of the shelter home did not inform the police before performing the final rites of the 41-year-old woman.

The deaths are expected to make things worse for chief minister Nitish Kumar, who is already under fire from the Opposition over the rape of 34 girls at a Muzaffarpur shelter home. That case has already resulted in Manju Verma, a leader from Nitish's Janata Dal United, resigning as social welfare department minister after it came to light that her husband was in touch with Brajesh Thakur, the arrested proprietor of the NGO that ran the Muzaffarpur Balika Grih.

Leader of Opposition in the Assembly Tejashwi Prasad Yadav on Sunday tried to link the Muzaffarpur and Patna cases. He tweeted in Hindi: "Were the two women who died brought to Patna from Muzaffarpur? Is it a coincidence? Did they know too much? Why were the last rites done without informing the police? Nitishji, who is behind all this?"