Eunuchs create ruckus at police station in Bihar alleging police excess

Patna, Feb 16 (IANS) More than 50 eunuchs created ruckus inside the Mufassil police station in Bihar's Siwan district on Thursday, accusing the cops of unnecessarily extorting money from them.

One of the eunuchs was even holding a bottle of petrol and threatening to immolate herself due to continuous police torture. They also burnt tyres on the road outside the police station.

"We work in different orchestras to earn our livelihood. This is the source of our income, but the local police are applying pressure on us. They extort Rs 2,000 to Rs 3,000 from us every week as 'hafta'. They also threaten to lodge false cases of child trafficking against anyone refusing to give them money. This has been going on for the past two months. We had sought help from every authority in the district, but nothing changed," said Mahi Khan, one of the protesters.

Recently, a Delhi-based NGO working for the protection of child rights along with police teams from Delhi and Bihar had conducted raids on two orchestra operators in Siwan district, and rescued 25 minor girls.

An FIR was registered against the operators for running flesh trade rackets involving minor girls. Since then, people who are involved in running such orchestra parties or those involved with them have come under the radar of the local police.

"We have given copies of Aadhaar cards of the girls associated with us to the police. All of them are over 20 years of age. No one is a minor, but the police are saying these cards are not valid. How else do we prove the age of the girls? These girls work with us out of their own wil... We are not running a prostitution racket here," said Karishma Pardesi, another protester.

Meanwhile, the SHO of the Mufassil police station claimed that the district police are keeping a close watch on the activities of the orchestra operators as some of them are involved in flesh trade using minor girls.

"After the raid and recovery of 25 minor girls, we are taking action against the suspected persons. They have created ruckus in the police station to support the orchestra operators," he said.

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