Patna, Aug. 21: The state women’s commission probing eve-teasing charges levelled by nine girls in Rohtas today said they would find out if proper police action was taken against the alleged tormentors.

Savita Natrajan, who led the three-member team to Aliganj, said she would look through the FIR to find if there had been any “administrative lapses”. The police’s negligence emboldened the tormentors, who harassed the girls on their way to college or coaching institutes at Bikramganj, a sub-divisional town in Rohtas, she said.

“Had the administration (police) taken appropriate action on time, the situation would not have worsened to such an extent,” Natrajan told reporters at Aliganj village, about 130km southwest of Patna, after listening to the girls for almost three hours from 12.30pm.

She said prima facie, the allegation against Manish Kumar, the prime accused in the case, has been found to be true. Manish has gone into hiding.

One of the girls told them that Imirata resident Manish had started harassing a girl from Aliganj on her way to college a few years ago. “Manish used to pass lewd comments, sing vulgar songs and snap her photo with a cellphone camera,” the girl told the panel.

The harassment, kept under wraps from fear of social stigma, soon came to the notice of the parents when the other girls also fell victim to Manish.

“Hum logon ki zindagi barbad ho gayi hai. Ab dusaro ki zindagi aur barbad na ho (Our careers are ruined. Others should not have the same fate),” an Intermediate student of Dr Nagendra Jha Mahila College, Bikramganj, said. She added that Manish’s accomplices from Aliganj — Sunny and Munna — also harassed the girls.

Another girl, who lodged a complaint with the Suryapura police station on May 3, said Manish used to intercept the girls near the auto-stand at Bikramganj and threatened them with acid attacks.

The commission also called family members of the accused to the meeting. Lakshman, a retired army official currently posted with Jharkhand special auxiliary police in Ranchi, pleaded innocence of his sons, Sunny Kumar and Munna Kumar, made accused. He said: “Sunny does not stay in Aliganj but still has been made accused.” He alleged his family was being dragged into the controversy to settle scores.

Manish’s grandfather Gaya Singh, a clerk in a Lahrabagh-based college in Rohtas district, said: “He is being framed in false cases. I had supported a female teacher some of the parents had a personal grudge against,” he said.