Demonetisation done only to help Modi: Mamata
Continuing her verbal assaults on Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the demonetisation issue, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on…
The canker has assumed almost endemic proportions across West Bengal, and it didn’t quite behove the state’s education minister to publicly debunk the take of the child welfare minister on the trafficking of babies.
Thus far, Nabanna’s response has been inadequate, almost perfunctory. It was perfectly logical for Ms Sashi Panja to assert that she would like to take a close look at the newborns before they were declared stllborn by the spurious nursing homes that dot the districts, verily to facilitate their sale. Partha Chatterjee’s counter-assertion that only the Chief Minister is authorised to make a statement on the issue has scarcely deflected the focus from the enormity of the tragedy.
While countering a colleague, he has advanced a feeble defence of an ugly truth. Regretfully, the scandal has been overshadowed by the crippling currency crisis, and makes a mockery of the certitudes of a civilised society. That scandal was reinforced on Thursday with the CID levelling murder charges against the 20 arrested, including four doctors. It is of lesser moment whether they are qualified gynaecologists or quacks masquerading as specialists. Suffice it to register that sale of babies is a racket run by a coordinated network; the charges cover the NGOs allegedly involved, the authorities and staff of nursing homes, and also of course the doctors.
The crime is more deeply embedded than what the government has cared to acknowledge. It is embedded in a forbidding cocktail of poverty, rampant trafficking of women and girls, unwanted pregnancies, and little or no vigilance. The preliminary probe by the CID points to what they call a “supply syndicate” that gets the mothers-to-be admitted to shady nursing homes, involve dubious NGOs in the fiddle, and then prepare fake papers for adoption… prior to the eventual sale and exchange of wads of currency notes.
The babies on arrival bear witness to a horrendous crime. Unfortunately, though not unsurprisingly, the “trade” in the buying and sale of babies has thrived for as long as it has. The can of worms was opened when three newborns were discovered in a biscuit carton last week… criminally packaged for trafficking. Going by data furnished by the National Crime Records Bureau, the year 2015 alone witnessed a 25 per cent increase in child and infant trafficking in West Bengal.
It is now second only to Assam in this social crime graph. The fact that both are border states is more than a mere geographical expression. Indeed, the sale of babies is an organised crime that stretches from the eastern states to Punjab and Haryana. The inter-state thread is marked by adoption ethics, unwed mothers, the unwanted girl child, and the search for child brides. Altogether a heart-rending trade in human “merchandise”. In the net, West Bengal stands shamed.
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