Newborn trafficking racket busted in Kolkata

Kolkata (The Uttam Hindu): The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of West Bengal Police, on Sunday, claimed to have busted a newborn trafficking racket, with the arrest of a couple. Sources said that acting on a tip-off about the couple - Manik Halder and Mukul Sarkar, who were engaged in the trafficking of newborn kids, the CID sleuths contacted them as decoy parents wanting to adopt a child. The accused entered into a deal with the decoy parents, and a few days later, informed them that a newborn child would be handed over to them on Sunday against a cash payment of Rs 4,00,000.

Accordingly, Shalimar railway station in Howrah district was fixed as the venue for providing the baby with money. As the duo reached the spot, they were apprehended and nabbed by the CID sleuths in civil clothes. A two-day-old newborn was rescued from their possession. Later during interrogation, Halder and Sarkar confessed that they had stolen the child from Gaya in Bihar with the help of their local associates there. The accused were presented at a local court and the public prosecutor has moved a plea for their judicial custody.

State police sources said that the investigating officials believe that the arrested couple is part of a major newborn trafficking racket network in multiple states. The sleuths also doubt that this particular racket has links with neighbouring Bangladesh. To recall, in August last year, the sleuths of Kolkata Police busted a similar newborn trafficking racket in the city involving a network of hundreds of agents and sub-agents some of whom have their roots in Bangladesh. Their targets are mainly childless couples eager to adopt children who were ready to pay hefty amounts to get the baby. In that case, the operators of the racket used to make the newborn kids available through the use of the wombs of surrogate mothers.