Ten infant girls, suspected to have been trafficked, were recovered from a privately-run mental asylum in south Kolkata, a Criminal Investigation Department official said on Friday.
Acting on a tip-off, the CID officials raided Purbasha -- a home for mentally challenged patients at Thakurpukur on Kolkata's southern outskirts -- and rescued the babies.
"We have recovered 10 girls, all of them aged between one year to 10 months from the third floor of Purbasha. Two women, who reportedly rented the third floor of the building, had kept these infants here. We are looking for them," a CID official said.
A woman, identified as Reena Banerjee, said to be the owner of the asylum, has been arrested.
She is the daughter of Putul Banerjee, who was arrested from a south Kolkata nursing home earlier this week for her alleged involvement in child smuggling.
"We have detained three women from the asylum in this case. One of them, Reena Banerjee, the owner of the asylum, has been arrested. All three are being interrogated," the officer said.
"Occasionally we saw infants being brought in. Everything was done at night. We never realised they are running a child smuggling racket here," a local resident said.
Meanwhile, CID sleuths also recovered two skeletons of newborn babies from the campus of Sujit Dutta Memorial Trust, a South 24 Pargana based NGO, that came under the scanner last Monday for its alleged involvement in the child smuggling racket.
--IANS
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