Baby trafficking racket: Boys sold for Rs 2 lakhs, girls for Rs 1 lakh

Kolkata: In a major success so far in its ongoing probe in the baby-trafficking racket it busted in Baduria of West Bengal's North 24 Parganas district earlier this week, the criminal investigation department (CID) rescued ten more newborns during a raid at a rehabilitation centre for the mentally challenged senior citizens in south western parts of Kolkata late on Thursday night.

It has come to light while investigation that the racketeers duped mothers of the newborns, selling the male babies for Rs 2 lakhs, and the female babies for Rs 1 lakh.

According to the CID, the racket was run on a modus operandi in which the mothers of the newborns were told after deliveries that their babies were either dead or stillborn and they were denied the right to see them on those grounds. Whoever still wanted to her baby was offered compensation, the CID found. Later the newborns were smuggled out of the private nursing homes in buskets of biscuits and were trafficked in ambulances to an NGO: Subodh Memorial Trust in Machhlandapur in Baduria. The NGO later used to sell the babies to the childless couples from different parts of the country including New Delhi.

The raid took place shortly after the babies were smuggled to the Centre one after another from different private nursing homes. The CID officers found that the babies, wrapped in shawls and clothes, were lying on mattress on the floor of the centre. The rescue of so many babies at one go appears to be the largest by the state detective agency or any other police unit in West Bengal also.

After midnight deputy inspector general of police (CID) Bharat Lal Meena informed that all the 10 newborns were female and were aged from one month to ten months.

"The 10 newborns were recovered from the third floor of Purbasha, a home for the elderly persons with mental disorders, located at Badra Road in Kolagachhia of Thakurpukur in connection with the case at Baduria police station. These newborns were shifted by one of the prime accused in this case who is at large however. Two women were detained from that centre for questioning," Mr Meena added.

With the rescue of the 10 newborns the total number of babies rescued rose to 13 while the total number of accused arrested in the case stands at 14 including an NGO owner, four private nursing home owners and a senior gyaenocologist.

Initially the CID suspected that the racket was confined to the NGO, a nearby Sohan Nursing Home and a maternity clinic where abortion was the practice.

As the probe widened, several other nursing homes in Kolkata however came under the CID's scanner for their direct links with the NGO which has been sealed.