This story is from July 21, 2021

Ninth arrest in Bankura school trafficking case

Ninth arrest in Bankura school trafficking case
Bankura: A ninth accused in the Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya child trafficking case in Bankura’s Kalapathar was arrested from Durgapur, West Burdwan, on Tuesday. It is believed that a nine-month-old baby in Bikash Gupta’s house fuelled suspicions and led to his arrest.
Gupta is a relative of school teacher Sushma Sharma who, along with her husband Satish Thakur and principal Kamalkumar Rajoria, was arrested in Bankura on Sunday.
Rajoria, a native of Rajasthan, and two others were remanded in police custody for five days on Monday. Sharma and four others are in judicial custody.
State Commission for Protection of Child Rights chairperson Ananya Chatterjee Chakraborty visited Bankura on Tuesday and spoke to the two children who would have been trafficked on Sunday had not the panchayat pradhan spotted them in a car with two women and raised an alarm. Chatterjee Chakraborty demanded a proper probe into what she feared might be an interstate child trafficking ring.
Police are currently grilling principal Rajoria for information on possible accomplices and on whether the children had been subjected to any form of abuse. The children are being counselled so that they can record their statements before a magistrate. Several other angles, including poverty prompting parents to sell their babies, are being looked into.
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