The CID tonight arrested Mrinal Ghosh, the Darjeeling district child
protection officer, and a doctor for their alleged links to a baby sale
racket run from an orphanage in Jalpaiguri.
The arrested doctor, Debasish Chanda, is a member of the Darjeeling
Child Welfare Committee and was a visiting doctor at the orphanage run
by Chandana Chakraborty, the main accused in the case.
According to sources in the CID, Ghosh had facilitated the transfer
of infants to the Jalpaiguri orphanage, saying such a shelter was not in
Darjeeling district.
"Ghosh was informally involved with Chandana's
orphanage and the NGO, North Bengal People's Development Centre. There
are several charges against him and they would be revealed later," said a
source in the CID.
Ghosh is the first government officer to be arrested in the case.
The investigators said "Chanda had directly participated in the
adoption process" at the orphanage. "There are several telephonic
conversations which show the doctor's involvement in the racket. Chanda
received money from Chandana after the sale of every child through
Ghosh. The doctor was also salaried by Chandana's NGO," said the source.
Four doctors were named in the FIR and Chanda is the first among them to be arrested.
The CID arrested Ghosh after questioning him at Pintail Village, on
the outskirts of Siliguri, along with his wife, Sashmita Ghosh, the
Jalpaiguri district child protection officer. She was being questioned
even late at night.
Sashmita had told the media that she was innocent and had not taken any favour from Chandana.
The investigators said both Ghosh and Chanda would be produced in a
Jalpaiguri court tomorrow and the CID would seek their remand for 14
days.
The statements of arrested BJP leader Juhee Chowdhury's uncle
Surendra Narayan Chowdhury, his son Sukanta and her close acquaintance
Papia Chowdhury were recorded before a judicial magistrate in Jalpaiguri
today.
They said Juhee had taken loan from them and asked them to transfer the money to different bank accounts.
"We suspect Juhee was extending help to Chandana to gain control of
the latter's NGO and homes. We are in the process of collecting more
information and soon, it would be clear why she had funded Chandana," an
investigator said.
The probe has also revealed that Chandana was facing funds crunch as
her financial resources, including grants from central and state
governments, had dried up over the past few years.
State BJP president Dilip Ghosh today reiterated the "political
conspiracy" theory by alleging that CID was only arresting BJP leaders
like Juhee Chowdhury and harassing her father though many Trinamul
leaders were involved in the case.
Ghosh said the CID was not probing into allegations of forceful
detention of children in a home run by the wife of former Trinamul
minister Hiten Barman.(TT)
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