Bihar considers raising transgender battalion

Patna: The state government in Bihar is working on a plan to raise a separate police battalion of transgender people. The move vould provide employment to hundreds of loitering eunuchs on the streets who survive on seeking alms from people. The total population of transgenders in the state is 40,827.

Top state government officials confirmed they are working on the plan and something concrete will come out soon. “The state government is looking into the matter of raising a dedicated battalion of transgender in the Bihar police,” state’s additional chief secretary (Home) Amir Subhani told the media on Saturday.

Subhani, a 1987 batch Indian Administrative Service (IAS) topper from Bihar, refused to share more details about the plan but added the matter was under consideration of the state government.

The development comes after a woman activist Veera Yadav filed a petition in the Patna High Court demanding that the transgender community people be allowed to take part in recruitment process against 8,000 vacancies of constables in state police department. Acting on the petition, the court has directed the authorities to look into the matter.

This is the second time in quick succession that the state government felt the need for raising a battalion on the transgender people. Earlier, the state authorities had planned to employ eunuchs as security guards in remand homes or short stay homes to put a check on the sexual exploitation of girls lodged there.

The authorities planned to take their services after the rapes of some girls in at least two such short stay homes for females rocked the state in 2018. Indian rulers once castrated boys to create eunuchs to work in their harems but eunuchs today are generally males with partial genitals or who opt for castration because of strong female feelings.

Sex organs

Also known as ‘Hijaras’, eunuchs are widely feared for their nuisance values as none likes to interact with them. The authorities believed the employment of these eunuchs who survive on seeking alms from the villagers at the beating of claps could not only guarantee a foolproof security to the girl inmates lodged in short stay homes but also lessen the chances of their sexual exploitation since they have no sex organs.

Authorities went with the unusual idea alarmed at the recent incidents of rapes of girls at two short homes which earned a very bad name for the state. In one incident, a security guard was arrested by the police after he was found involved in rape of a girl at a short stay home in Chapra town.

Another incident was reported from Muzaffarpur town where as many as 34 girl inmates lodged in a shelter home were found to be in poor mental condition owing to alleged repeated sexual exploitation. The main accused in the case Brajesh Thakur who was alleged to have several connections in the political circles has been sentenced to life imprisonment by the court for sexually and physically assaulting several girls at the short stay home.