Bengal baby sale racket member sold infant to uncle for Rs 2 lakh
One of the members of the recently busted baby sale racket sold an infant to her maternal uncle for Rs 2 lakh, Bengal police’s criminal investigation department.
One of the members of the recently busted baby sale racket sold an infant to her maternal uncle for Rs 2 lakh, Bengal police’s criminal investigation department (CID) officers have said.
Officers said Paramita Chatterjee, who was associated with Sree Krishna Nursing Home on Kolkata’s College Street and arrested for her involvement in the racket, sold a year-and-a-half old baby.
Chatterjee’s uncle and her aunt, a couple from Kalindi and another couple from the city, who bought babies from members of the recently busted racket, were among those questioned by the CID on Tuesday and Wednesday. CID officers interrogated these three couples to find out how they were raising the children.
“It appeared that all the couples were emotionally attached to the babies and were rearing and providing for them to the best of their ability,” a CID source told Hindustan Times.
Investigators are likely to interrogate more couples in the next few days.
On November 21, the CID busted a racket that operated from a private nursing home at Baduria in North 24-Parganas, stretched all the way to different parts of the country and beyond to the US and the UK.
Not unexpectedly, newborn girls were sold for less — between Rs 80,000 and Rs 1 lakh if their complexion was dark, and between Rs 1 lakh to Rs 1.5 lakh if they were fair. The boys got sold for not less than Rs 2 lakh.
So far three nursing homes and two NGOs have been found to be involved in the racket. At least 20 people, including three doctors, have been arrested.
The CID has said it is approaching the matter with a humanitarian angle rather than keeping the lawbook in mind. Under the law, the department can take these babies away and put them in hospitals first. From the hospitals, they will be taken to state-run childcare homes.
“We don’t want to push the babies back into uncertainty and, therefore, it was important to find out whether they were getting proper upkeep,” an officer said.
“We asked the couples to bring all evidence of proper upkeep of a baby such as immunisation and medical treatment records. Moreover, it was also quite evident from the body language of the couples that they loved the babies like their own,” the source added.
HT reported last week that when CID sleuths visited the residence of the couple in Kalindi, the mother, petrified at the prospect of losing her baby, threw herself at the feet of the investigators pleading them not to take the baby away.
They didn’t.
“The father silently stood at a corner of the room with glistening eyes. It was so very apparent that they were doing their best for the child and loved her very much,” an officer said.
They bought the newborn for Rs 2 lakh just before Durga Puja and named her Akansha. The couple married in 2012 but the wife could not conceive for four years after which they got in touch with a member of the racket.
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