Four more held in Baduria child trafficking case

Four more persons including three women were arrested from the city on Tuesday evening in connection with the international child trafficking racket busted in North 24 Parganas district’s Baduria area taking the total number of arrests to 12 in the sensational case.

A CID official said the three women, linked to different nursing homes running in the metropolis, were arrested after prolonged questioning for their alleged involvement in the trafficking case.

They were arrested since most of the questions asked to them did not elicit satisfactory replies, another top CID source confirmed.

The women were identified as – Paromita Chatterjee of a nursing home in College Street area, Prabha Parmanik and Putul Banerjee of a nursing home in Behala.

They were earlier detained following interrogations of those arrested from the North 24 Parganas locality.

Eight persons were arrested on Tuesday for their alleged involvement with the international racket of child trafficking following a CID raid at Baduria.

They were identified as - Najma Bibi, Utpala Byapari, a quack Amirul Biswas, owner of a local nursing home Asadur Jaman, an NGO activist Satyajit Sinha, a clinic-owner Bakbul Baidya and lawyer Prabhat Sarkar along with his associate Jhantu Biswas.

A doctor was also arrested by the CID for his alleged involvement in the case.

Santosh Kumar Samanta (60), attached to a private nursing home was arrested in the evening for his alleged involvement with the trafficking racket, a senior CID officer said.

“We have proof about the doctor’s involvement with the racket. We need to question him more to find out who else are involved in it,” the official said.

It was learnt that the doctor was picked up from his residence on Jessore Road within the Dum Dum Police Station limits.

Acting on a tip off a team comprises of senior officials of the CID on Monday night carried out a raid at a private nursing home at Baduria under Basirhat sub-division and arrested 8 persons including two women for their involvement in this racket. 

Police have recovered three newborn babies out of which two were placed in a large biscuit packing case and the accused were preparing to traffic the babies.