WB child trafficking racket bust: 10 more babies rescued from Kolkata home, babies' skeletons recovered in N 24 Parganas

After interrogating Putul Banerjee, who was arrested earlier, CID came to know about the Thakurpukur home and conducted raid, according to reports.

Owner of the privately-run home, Rina Banerjee, was arrested and at least three women staffers of the home have been detained for interrogation, reports said.

Meanwhile, CID arrested another key-operator of the busted child trafficking racket, Marefa Bibi, who is a resident of Maslandapur area in West Bengal's North 24 Parganas district.

After interrogating her, CID officials dug a garden at Maslandapur, behind the accused NGO office, on Friday and recovered bones and skulls of at least two babies.

Digging at the place is currently underway as investigators are suspecting that more skeletons of babies could be found underneath the garden.

Earlier on Monday night, a CID team raided privately-run Sohan Nursing Home at Baduria area in North 24 Parganas district and after busting a child trafficking racket there, rescued three newborn babies.

Two out of the three were placed in a biscuit-packing case and were rescued from a damp room in the nursing home.

Eight persons, including the nursing home owner, were arrested that day and after interrogating them, the CID later booked five more persons, including a 60-year-old doctor Santosh Kumar Samanta, administrator of M. G. Road's Shri Krishna Nursing Home Paramita Chatterjee, its owner Partha Chatterjee and owners of South View Nursing Home in city's Behala area- Putul Banerjee and Probha Bhaumick.

Meanwhile, Baduria's Sohan Nursing Home, which was the base of child trafficking operations, Kolkata's Shri Krishna and South View nursing homes were being run without health department's authorisation and permission, according to an official of West Bengal health department.

State health department has already ordered a departmental inquiry into the matter, officials said.

The CID, however, has opened a helpline number to trace the parents of these rescued babies.

"People whose babies were declared dead just after birth in those nursing homes, can contact us to get your babies back. Our special helpline number is: (033) 2450-6100," a senior official of CID told IBNS.

CID sources said that few private hospitals in Kolkata and another doctor, linked with Shri Krishna Nursing Home, were under the state probe agency's scanner as a part of the ongoing investigation.

Meanwhile, demanding a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the matter, one lawyer, Srikanta Dutta, on Thursday filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) before a division bench of the Calcutta High Court, comprising of Chief Justice Girish Chandra Gupta and Justice Arindam Sinha.

"As the recently unearthed child trafficking racket has national and international links, India's apex probe agency CBI could investigate the matter properly," petitioner Srikanta Dutta told IBNS.

The matter will be heard in the Calcutta High Court's division bench very soon, according to court's registrar.

(Reporting by Deepayan Sinha)