Manoj being taken away by police in Muzaffarpur. Picture by Gopi Raman

Patna/Muzaffarpur, April 20: A panchayat in Muzaffarpur district has decided to socially boycott the family members of Manoj Sah, the prime accused in the rape of a five-year-old girl in Delhi, and deprive them of the benefits of all government welfare schemes.

The decision, the first of its kind in Bihar against a rape accused, was taken unanimously this afternoon at an emergency meeting of the panchayat of Bharathua, a village 105km north of Patna from where the 22-year-old Manoj’s family hails.

Panchayat head Lal Babu Rai said such an unprecedented move had been initiated to teach sex offenders and their families a lesson.

“We called a meeting of the panchayat soon after we came to know about the involvement of Manoj in such a heinous crime. It is a different matter that the law would take its own course. But we have initiated such a measure to prevent offenders from committing such crimes,” Rai told The Telegraph. “The family won’t get benefits due to BPL card holders, or under the Indira Awas Yojana etc which are linked to the panchayat.”

The village of Bharathua, which lies on the embankment of the river Bagmati, had been graced by the likes of Mahatma Gandhi who had participated in a “shram daan”, a voluntary self-service programme, in the 1920s to help the locals build a canal.

Manoj’s father Bindeshwari Sah, along with his two brothers, had migrated from the village, which remains flooded for about six months in a year, about one-and-a-half decades ago and settled in Delhi. Bindeshwari owns a small juice stall in Old Seelampur area of northeastern Delhi.

Manoj, who got married last year, has two brothers and four sisters, all of who are in Delhi as well. He was engaged as a daily wage labourer in a garments manufacturing factory.

Only Manoj’s grandfather Heera Sah and his wife continue to stay in the family home.

Manoj was arrested from his in-laws’ residence at Chiknauta village in Muzaffarpur district shortly after midnight on Saturday. He was produced before sub-divisional judicial magistrate (west), Muzaffarpur, Shatrughna Prasad Singh around 6.30am today. The court allowed a Delhi police team to take Manoj on transit remand for three days.

As Manoj came out of the court, some Muzaffarpur residents roughed him up in the presence of the police force. The police had a tough time dealing with the frenzied mob, which demanded that the young man be handed over to them for “instant justice”. The police somehow managed to take him out of the court premises and drove him to Patna from where they boarded a flight to Delhi around 3.30pm.

Even at the Patna airport, the police had to contend with an enraged crowd, which hurled slippers at the rape accused.

Director-general of police Abhayanand said Manoj was arrested on the basis of information given by the Delhi police. “We cooperated with the Delhi police team, which took the accused on transit remand,” he said.

Police sources said Manoj was arrested with the help of the mobile phone tracking system. His in-laws told the police that Manoj had come to the village by the Swatantrata Senani Express from Delhi on Tuesday evening.

“He did not disclose anything about the incident. He behaved quite normally. We were not aware of anything till the police arrived late on Friday night,” said Manoj’s father in-law Mahendra Sah.

Manoj’s wife had come to her parents’ house from Delhi a couple of months ago. Manoj had visited his in-laws about two weeks ago but returned to Delhi again.

“We were a bit surprised over his decision to return from Delhi so soon. But nobody questioned him as he had gone to Delhi alone and his family (wife) was at Chiknauta,” said Manoj’s brother in-law Ranjan Kumar.

The police have also detained a friend of Manoj from Chiknauta village, who too stayed in Delhi. But they refused to disclose his identity on the plea that he had not yet been arrested.

The Sahs’ neighbours at Bharathua said they were happy with the decision to ostracise the family. “Had he been in the village today, we would have taught him a lesson on the spot. He was fortunate that the police arrested him,” Sah’s neighbour Jitendra Kumar said.

Manoj is the second Bihar resident to have been booked on a rape charge in the past few months. Aurangabad resident Akshay Thakur is one of the six accused in the rape and murder of a para-medical student in Delhi last December. Thakur is currently lodged in Delhi’s Tihar jail.

Child stable

The five-year-old girl undergoing treatment in Delhi after she was brutally raped for two days has suffered severe injuries in her private parts, and will need reconstructive surgery, doctors said on Saturday.

Doctors said the girl’s condition had stabilised and she was talking.

“She has suffered injuries in her private parts and will need to undergo corrective and reconstruction surgery,” said D.K. Sharma, medical superintendent at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS).

“Her condition is stable and she is out of danger. She has been under close observation and monitoring. She has been put on intravenous fluids and antibiotics,” he added.

Union health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad today visited the child at AIIMS and assured her parents that the government would provide “all assistance and the best possible medical care” to her. Azad also met the doctors treating the child.

A statement from the minister’s office said Azad “strongly condemned this brutal and barbaric act and sought speedy and exemplary punishment for the offender so that such heinous crimes do not take place in future”.