A police team had come from Patna to look for the missing girls. (Representational)
Six of the seven minor girls, who escaped from a government-run shelter home in Bihar's Mokama town have been found, police said. Five of them are witnesses in the Muzaffarpur sexual assault case
Darbhanga Senior Superintendent of Police Babu Ram said a police team had come from Patna to look for the missing girls, based on the inputs they had gathered during investigation.
Opposition parties lashed out at the NDA government in Bihar, alleging that five of the girls were "witnesses" in the sex scandal being probed by the CBI under the supervision of the Supreme Court, and claimed their escape was a "conspiracy" hatched by the ruling dispensation to protect "big shots".
"Seven girls have escaped from the shelter home. They are said to have fled after cutting the grill of a window at about 3 am. They were under treatment for their violent behaviour," Social Welfare Department Director Raj Kumar told news agency PTI. It is yet to be ascertained whether the girls include former inmates of the Muzaffarpur shelter home
Later, Deputy Inspector General (Patna Range) Rajesh Kumar reached the spot for inspection and said, "We are conducting investigations taking all possible angles into account."
Sniffer dogs and forensic experts were pressed into service to trace the girls who had fled the home situated around 100 km from the state capital.
Meanwhile, Leader of the Opposition in state Assembly Tejashwi Yadav tweeted: "Five witnesses of the Muzaffarpur rape case have been made to disappear from Mokama shelter home to protect the chief minister and the government machinery."