Sasmita Ghosh, the District Child Protection officer (DCPO) in Jalpaiguri, has been show-caused in connection with the incident of child trafficking in the district in which the BJP Mahila Morcha state secretary Juhee Chowdhury was allegedly involved.
This comes at the time when the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) is trying to ascertain the "influential person" who had assisted Juhee to take the prime accused of the racket, Chandana Chakrabory, to meet Central ministers and top bureaucrats in Delhi on January 10.
Rachna Bhagat has issued the show-cause notice to Sasmita asking her to explain that how could she be unaware of such an incident of child trafficking when it was her duty to monitor the functioning of the destitute homes.
It is learnt that the show-cause notice was issued to her after certain discrepancies were found in some documents containing her signature. Sasmita, however, claimed herself to be innocent and said she was ready to give reply to the show-cause notice.
Meanwhile, the CID officers will also question Sasmita as the prime accused was known to her. Sasmita claimed that she knew Chandana as she used to run a home for destitute children. But she gave a blank expression when asked about Juhee acting as if she had never heard the name before, said a CID officer, adding that besides Sasmita, a woman officer of the Child Welfare Committee will also be interrogated.
The CID officers have got the call details of both Chandana and Juhee. It revealed that both of them had contacted an "influential person". Being a leader of BJP Mahila Morcha, there is nothing unusual in Juhee calling up the "influential person". But the suspicion arose when it was found that Chandana had also contacted the same person. In a bid to ascertain the involvement of the "influential person" in the racket, CID officers first want to interrogate Juhee and initiated a state wide search for her.
In the meantime, Juhee's father, Rabindranath Chowdhury, visited the state headquarters of BJP on Tuesday. Claiming his daughter to be innocent, he said that she being a political leader, some persons may come to meet her. But it doesn't mean that she was involved in any crime.