Prime accused suspended from headmistress post

The District Primary Education Council suspended Chandana Chakraborty, the prime accused in Jalpaiguri's child trafficking case, from the post of headmistress of a primary school.

She had been running the racket despite being the headmistress of the primary school in Jalpaiguri and was arrested on February 18 from her school itself. On Wednesday, the Council finally suspended her after looking into all sides of the allegations raised against her.

Meanwhile in a new twist to the Jalpaiguri's child trafficking case, the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) on Wednesday found two pregnant women in the accused Chandana Chakraborty's short-stay home, Ashray. The women were shown to couples from abroad as the latter expressed interest in buying the babies that they will give birth to.

Both the women were admitted to Jalpaiguri Sub-division Hospital on Wednesday morning.

Sources in CID said there were 21 women inmates including four minors in the short-stay home. After admitting the two pregnant women in hospital, the district administration shifted four of them to a home in Darjeeling. The rest are now given shelter in another home called Anubhav at Club Road in Jalpaiguri.

Chandana usually used to give shelter to unmarried pregnant women and used to sell out the babies in the name of helping couples to adopt a child.

Investigation revealed that two couples from abroad had visited the Ashray home a few weeks ago. Chandana took them to the short-stay home to show the condition of the women.

The investigating officers came to know from the women that the couples had expressed their satisfaction after seeing the health condition of both the women whose babies they had decided to buy.

Chandana also used to bring in girls, who were pavement dwellers, in the short-stay home and even used fake rubber stamps of the local police station to make forged documents to prove that she had permission to keep the girls in her home.

The investigating officers came to know that Chandana's Bimala Sishu Griha's name was not found in the list of the homes authorised for helping people adopt a child in the website of the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA).