Two more arrested in Baduria child trafficking case

The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) arrested the owner of Srikrishna Nursing home Partha Chatterjee and one Marefa Bibi on charges of running a child trafficking racket. They were arrested in the wee hours on Thursday.

With the arrest of these two, the total number of arrests in this connection has gone up to 14. Chatterjee’s daughter Paramita Chatterjee, whose husband is a senior official of a reputed private hospital off EM Bypass, was another key person in terms of running Srikrishina Nursing Home. She was arrested on Wednesday night. Marefa Bibi used to work for an NGO.

Police came to know about the involvement of the nursing home in the racket to traffic new born babies after interrogating the eight persons who were arrested on Monday night from Baduria on similar charges.

The investigating officers came to know that Chatterjee was well aware of the illegal activities taking place in his nursing home and it was being carried out for years to make fast money.

On Wednesday night, CID officers arrested Santosh Samanta, who claimed himself to be a doctor, from his residence off Jessore Road in North 24 Parganas. He used to work for the nursing home. He used to tell the parents that the mother gave birth to a still born baby and used to give a death certificate and later sold the child. 

The birth certificates of the new born baby were also given by him. CID officers came to know about the involvement of some doctors from reputed hospitals and they would also be questioned.

Another nursing home in Behala where the same practice was going on also came to light after its owner and her close aides were arrested. The owner of the South View Nursing Home at Behala was Putul Banerjee alias Bordi. She used to control each and every function of the nursing home.

She had started running the nursing home after the death of her husband. Local people hardly used to go there for treatment as they knew that women from Budge Budge and Mahestala areas in South 24 Parganas used to come there for abortion.

But it was not known to the local people that Bordi, who is at present in CID’s custody, used to sell new born babies after claiming that a woman gave birth to a still born one.