WB child trafficking: 20 more children rescued from old-age home, another woman held

According to reports, after booking the old-age home's owner-cum-secretary Bimal Adhikary from his residence at Green Park area under Thakurpukur Police Station jurisdictions in Kolkata on Friday night, police conducted raid at the home and rescued these children. 

Officials of West Bengal Department of Women & Child Development and Social Welfare along with the police force rescued the babies and toddlers from the home on Saturday and shifted them to a state government-run home at Laxmikantapur in  South 24 Parganas district.

Meanwhile, the coordinator of the old-age home, Basanti Chakraborty, who was absconding since Friday, has been detained from Thakurpukur area by local police and the CID has been called in, reports said.

Earlier on Monday night, the CID busted a child trafficking racket at privately-run Sohan Nursing Home under Baduria Police Station limits in North 24 Parganas district and arrested eight persons, including the nursing home owner, in connection with the case.

Three newborn babies, two out of which were found in biscuit-packing case, were rescued from a damp room in the nursing home.

After interrogating the eight arrested, the CID later booked five more persons, including 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.

After getting inputs from Putul Banerjee, CID raided an old-age home in Kolkata's Thakurpukur area and rescued ten baby girls, aged between 1 and 10 months.

Home's owner- Rina Banerjee- and a staff of the old-age home were arrested, while two more staffers have been detained for interrogation.

Those babies, who were kept in an insalubrious place since last few months, have been admitted to Joka ESI hospital.

According to hospital sources, all ten babies are suffering from several diseases and infections.

"We are suspecting that one of the ten babies is Thalassemia affected, four of them are suffering from pneumonia and others have several infections and high fever," a doctor of Joka ESI hospital told IBNS.

"As the babies did not have breast-milk after birth, they are suffering from malnutrition and these babies do not have disease resistance power," the doctor added.

Meanwhile, CID officials on Friday dug a garden at Maslandapur, behind the accused NGO- Sujit Dutta Memorial Welfare Trust- office, and recovered bones and skulls of at least two babies.

According to CID sources, several nursing homes and doctors, based in Bengal's North 24 Parganas, Hooghly, Burdwan and Nadia districts, are under the probe agency's scanner as a part of this ongoing investigation.

Till the last update came in, as many as 17 persons have been booked so far in connection with the racket and 16 of them are in CID custody.

(Reporting by Deepayan Sinha)