Muzaffarpur: Brajesh Thakur, the arrested proprietor of the NGO that ran the state government-funded shelter home in Muzaffarpur where at least 34 minor girls were drugged, tortured and raped, rubbed shoulders with the who's who of Bihar.

Highly placed sources said that in 2005, when Nitish Kumar became chief minister, he had gone to Muzaffarpur to take part in the birthday celebration of Brajesh's son Rahul Anand.

The sources also said that when Brajesh was arrested on June 2, a senior police officer had received calls from six past and present Union ministers.

And on Wednesday, from another shelter home run by Brajesh's NGO, police seized a photograph of a young Brajesh with RJD chief Lalu Prasad. In Muzaffarpur, it is hard to find people who will speak on record about Brajesh, who designated himself chief functionary of the NGO Seva Sankalp Evam Vikas Samiti that ran Balika Grih.

"It was not a shelter home. It was a horror house," said a person who lives near the Balika Grih. "Brajesh's links with police and administrative officials were an open secret."

Once considered close to erstwhile Bihar People's Party (BBP) founder Anand Mohan, who is now serving a life sentence for the 1994 murder of then Gopalganj district magistrate G. Krishnaiah, Brajesh (55) had unsuccessfully contested the Assembly election from the Kudhani seat in Muzaffarpur district. He first contested in 1995 as a BPP candidate and got only 202 votes, and then in 2000, when the BPP was part of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA).

Brajesh, sources said, would flaunt his connections with don-turned politician Anand Mohan, whose wife Lovely Anand was elected as an MP from Vaishali in the 1994 by-election. Anand's name once spelt terror in the Kosi region. In 2011, Brajesh tried his luck in the district board election from Muzaffarpur.

However, he invited the wrath of another don-turned-politician, Shah Alam Shabbu. Alam, a former vice-chairman of the Muzaffarpur district board, is in the real estate business and an archrival of Brajesh. Alam was recently released on bail in the Navruna Chakraborty kidnapping and murder case.

Brajesh, sources said, had fielded his son Rahul in the panchayat samiti election in 2016 but lost.

"He was recently hobnobbing with the RJD-Congress alliance to get a ticket for the next Assembly election from Kudhani, the constituency he has been nurturing since his father, the late Radha Mohan Thakur, carried out development work through an NGO called KAPART," a source said.

The source, who is close to Brajesh, said Brajesh had earlier lobbied with some senior JDU leaders to get his berth but the presence of Manoj Kumar alias Manoj Kushwaha, JDU MLA and former minister, compelled him to change sides.

"He was also in touch with a newly elected Rajya Sabha member, who had promised to lobby for him in the Grand Alliance," the source said.

Brajesh made his son Rahul the editor of vernacular daily Pratah Kamal and daughter Nikita Anand the editor of English daily NewsNext. Brajesh owned another Urdu newspaper, Halaat-E-Bihar.

Brajesh remained associated with Pratah Kamal as a correspondent and got Press Information Bureau accreditation, which was cancelled on Wednesday. He has also been associated with committees to get advertisements for his newspapers.

Brajesh later got into social service and focused on bagging contracts through the Seva Sankalp Evam Vikas Samiti, which was founded by his late father in 1987-88.

In 2013, Brajesh signed an agreement with the social welfare department to run shelter homes for minor girls and destitute women in Muzaffarpur.

At the Balika Grih building, located on Sahu Road in Muzaffarpur, a portrait of late Radha Mohan Thakur and a Bihar Human Rights Commission calendar hangs on a wall on the ground floor veranda.

At Swadhar Grih, another shelter home for destitute women Brajesh ran, according to documents seized by the police, 471 girls had stayed at some point of which four ran away and three died. An investigating officer said they were trying to locate the missing girls.

The sexual abuse case was handed over to the CBI on July 26.

At Brajesh's native village Panchdahi, around 20km southeast of Muzaffarpur town, residents said that the late Radha Mohan Thakur was a teacher at the Hari Narayan government primary school on Club Road in Muzaffarpur. Radha Mohan later became the chairman of All India Small and Medium News Papers Society. He was arrested by the CBI in a newsprint scam.

Brajesh's mother, Manorama Devi, was an auxiliary nurse midwife. Brajesh's wife, Asha Kumari, teaches at the local RS College.

"Radha Mohan's father, the late Vashishta Thakur, was a private driver by profession," said a local resident. "The family had not less than two-three bighas of land. The CBI should look into the huge wealth accumulated by the family in the past three-and-a-half-decades."

The family of Brajesh, who is alleged to have made millions through his NGO and newspapers, alleged he was being made a scapegoat.

"There is a big conspiracy to frame my father in false cases," said his daughter Nikita Anand.