Mumbai: The Mumbai Police have busted an inter-state child trafficking racket by tracing a two-year-old child trafficked from the city to a location near Kolkata, West Bengal, nearly 1,900 km away.
The child, along with a three-year-old unidentified girl was rescued from the possession of a woman dental therapist in Uttarpara, Hooghly, 10 km to the north of Kolkata.
On August 21, 2024, the Mumbai Police registered an FIR against one Anil Purvaiya for selling a two-year-old boy for Rs 1,60,000 with the help of Asma Shaikh, Sharif Shaikh and Asha Pawar. Purvaiya and Asma were arrested and on the basis of their statements, Asha was picked up from Hyderabad.
“Asha confessed that she sold the child to a woman named Rashmi at the Bhubaneswar railway station in Odisha. The police then started tracking Rashmi’s phone and came to know that she was working at a dental hospital in Bhubaneswar. On reaching there, we came to know that she has moved to a hospital in Cuttack. At the Cuttack hospital, we were told that she had quit her job there,” a senior police official said.
Further technical analysis revealed that Rashmi Banerjee (43) was located at Uttarpara in the Hooghly district of West Bengal. It also came to light that Rashmi is originally from Uttarpara.
A Mumbai Police team raided her residence at Lawrence in Uttarpara with help from the local police and rescued the two-year-old boy and the unidentified girl. Rashmi was arrested and produced before a court that granted the police her transit remand.
Locals said that they had often heard children crying from inside the house. On one occasion, they had even informed the police who broke open the lock and found a child inside. Rashmi had arrived soon and claimed that the child was hers. The police backed off despite objections from the locals.
“We would see her with different children. Some were boys and others girls. How could she have so many children. The police paid no heed to our complaints though. It is good that she has finally been arrested,” a neighbour told OB Bureau.
While Rashmi and the boy have been brought to Mumbai, the girl has been sent to a home for such children in West Bengal. At Mumbai, the boy was admitted to a hospital as there were injury marks on his body. The police suspect that he was physically tortured by Rashmi.
