The West Bengal CID while probing into a child trafficking racket, unearthed a unique modus operandi adopted by the suspect group. The group was found to be first attracting prospective buyers through Facebook by creating a group titled “Baby Adoption”.
After that, they followed the digital footprints of interested person(s) on social media platforms to ensure none of them were connected to law enforcement agencies.
The CID arrested a suspected young couple from Shalimar railway station in Howrah, from whom they got to know about a long trail that started from social media platforms and led to a remote village in the neighbouring states of Bihar and Jharkhand.
“Manik Halder and Mukul Sarkar were intercepted as they stepped out of the railway station last week. Pretending to be a married couple, Mukul held a two-day-old baby girl in her arms. We rescued the newborn, sent her to a state-run hospital and arrested the two suspects. During interrogation, we came to know the infant was brought from Gaya, Bihar,” said R. Rajasekaran, ADG, CID.
The Anti-Human Trafficking Unit (AHTU) of the CID first came to know about social media platforms being used for infant/child trafficking and selling them.
“We started zeroing in on social media profiles and came across the Facebook group with more than 200 members. We joined hands with an NGO and activated its members who pretended themselves as childless couple looking for adoption bypassing the rule book. Our operation started proceeding smoothly and a deal was finalised for a baby girl. They shared the contact number of Manik, who demanded Rs 4 lakh for the baby girl,” said Rajasekaran.
As the NGO’s members knew about the date and time of the arrival of the child, we waited and caught the two accused red-handed, the ADG said.
Elaborating on the modus operandi, a CID officer said Manik not only checked the Facebook profiles of the two NGO members and their friend lists but also visited the places where they reside and asked about them from the neighbours.
“All these were aimed to be sure that the NGO members were not police personnel,” he said.
During the investigation, police came to know about a woman in Gaya, who was used for surrogacy.
“Our investigation has put several IVF centres and nursing homes in Bengal, Bihar and Jharkhand under the scanner. Manik’s job as an AC mechanic gave him access to IVF centres from where the racket procured sperm. The ringleaders of the racket then used distressed women as surrogates,” said a sleuth working on this case.
Armed with the details of the separated woman, who is believed to be the surrogate mother of the rescued girl, a team of the CID went to Gaya.
“But the woman managed to give us a slip. It seems, the other members of the racket, who are yet to be arrested, tipped her off about our catch in Kolkata,” said the officer, adding, “The traffickers have been operating for the past three years and we suspect, they have already sold many infants in Kolkata and other states.”
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