KOLKATA: Anandapur Police on Thursday arrested a couple, along with three women, for selling the couple’s 23-day-old granddaughter for Rs 30,000. While one of the accused, nabbed from Narendrapur, is suspected to be the main agent or the buyer, the others are sub-agents. The arrested couple has been identified as Chunnu Das and his second “wife” Aloka Sardar.
Chunnu (50) lives in Bantala Bazar but is originally from Bihar’s Gaya.
“Based on his statement, we nabbed the other accused — his “wife” Aloka, Shika Mukherjee (36), Purnima Mondal (38) and Chaitali Chakraborty (40). The infant was rescued from Chakraborty’s residence in Narendrapur’s Panchpota on Wednesday. The girl child had been missing since 2pm on December 12. Barring Chakraborty, all other accused are residents of Anandapur.
They have been arrested on the basis of a complaint filed by the newborn’s mother Neelam Kumari on December 13. The child has been handed over to her mother and cops have arranged for the girl’s treatment.
Cops hinted that more arrests are likely. Lalbazar said the questioning of the five accused is on to ascertain three major issues — identifying everyone involved, establishing the money trail and finding out the motive. “We are not ruling out the possibility that procurement of the girl child could have been for the purpose of slavery or prostitution,. However, the fact that a childless couple could have bought the infant has not been ruled out, “ said an officer.
“Neelam claimed that her father and step-mother hatched a criminal conspiracy with several persons and took away the newborn when she was not present in her room. They sold her for Rs 30,000. Neelam had come to her ancestral home after giving birth and her husband Vikas Paswan lives elsewhere,” said DC (east) Arish Bilal.
A case under IPC sections 370 (whoever imports, exports, removes, buys, sells or disposes of any person as a slave, or accepts, receives or detains against his will any person as a slave), 372 (selling minor for purposes of prostitution) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) read with Sec 81 Juvenile Justice (Care & Protection of Children) Act, 2015 has been initiated.
This is the second time this year that arrests were made after allegations of kids being sold in Anandapur. The earlier case was in August and eight persons, including caregivers and IVF centre employees, had been arrested.
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