Child trafficking: Remains of two children found near NGO office in North 24 Parganas

This is the same NGO from where a trafficking racket dealing in newborns used to operate. Newborn children were sent to the NGO from different nursing homes to be sold for lakhs of rupees. Till date, 14 people – including the NGO officials Satyajit Sinha and Utpala Byapari – have been arrested in connection with the child trafficking racket by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID).

Sources said that the investigating officers came to know of the dead newborn buried behind the NGO building after interrogating Byapari.

On Friday morning, Byapari pointed out the spot in the garden. The place was dug up and CID officers found skeletal remains of children. They had been wrapped in cloth, packed inside cardboard boxes and buried in the garden.

Officers presume that the two newborns had been trafficked before being buried.

Police are trying to ascertain the identity of the two deceased and once again questioned Byapari and Sinha to find out how and when the bodies were buried.

CID officers suspect that the bodies of many more newborn could have been buried by members of the NGO. The officers continued to search the garden well into the evening.

The NGO building is situated on a few acres of land. Behind the building is a garden – where the bodies were found – and in the front is a courtyard was covered with concrete slabs and tiles.

There are two underground water reservoirs in the front portion. CID officers also searched inside the water reservoirs and will remove the tiles and concrete slabs if necessary to search for bodies of any more children, in case they have been buried under the concrete slabs.

The recovered remains were sent for post-mortem. The investigation revealed that newborns from certain nursing homes, including one at Baduria and two in Kolkata, were brought to the NGO to be sold to prospective customers.

Sources said that with the recovery of the two bodies, the CID would approach the court to include murder charges under section 392 of the Indian Penal Code against all the 14 people arrested in connection with the child trafficking racket. 

The preliminary investigation also revealed that the children had been abused before being killed.

On Friday, a Public Interest Litigation was filed in the Calcutta High Court demanding a CBI probe into repeated cases of child trafficking.