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Police arrests old-age home owner in WB child trafficking racket

by IBNS 26 Nov 2016, 07:29 am

Kolkata, Nov 26 (IBNS): West Bengal Criminal Investigation Department (CID) on Friday late evening arrested the owner of an old-age home in Kolkata in connection with its ongoing probe into a child trafficking racket in the state, officials said.

According to reports, arrested Bimal Adhikary runs an old-age home- Joka Millennium Old Age Home and Rehab Centre- at Green Park area under Thakurpukur Police Station limits in Kolkata, which was another operation base of the child trafficking racket.
 
"We have booked an old-age home's owner Bimal Adhikary for his involvement in the recently unearthed child trafficking racket and our search operation is still on to catch the co-owner and administrator of the home- Basanti Chakraborty," a senior CID official told IBNS.
 
Earlier on Monday night, 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 placed 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.
 
Those babies, who were kept in an insalubrious place since last few months, have been admitted to ESI hospital.
 
Home's owner- Rina Banerjee- and a staff of the old-age home were arrested, while two more staffers have been detained for interrogation.
 
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.
 
"We have got few more names as a part of this ongoing probe and will catch them soon. I won't reveal those names as the investigation is in pre-matured state," ADG (CID) Rajesh Kumar told IBNS. 
 
(Reporting by Deepayan Sinha)