Hours after the State CID arrested Bengal BJP women’s wing secretary Juhi Chowdhury for her alleged involvement in infant-trafficking case, the saffron leadership on Wednesday removed the woman leader from her post but not before State BJP president Dilip Ghosh condemned the Mamata Banerjee Government for “trying to falsely implicate our leaders to gain political brownie points.”
Chowdhury who was on the run for more than a week was arrested from India-Nepal border after the arrest of Chandana Chakrabarti a school teacher and owner of Bimala Sishu Griho an NGO allegedly involved in child-trafficking behind the veneer of an orphanage.
Chakrabarty had confessed before the CID that Chowdhury had been acting as a conduit between some powerful names in Delhi and the NGO involved in infant-racketing, SSP CID Ajay Prasad said.
A court in Jalpaiguri from where Juhi hails on Wednesday gave 12-day CID custody to the accused even as the police said some Government officials could also have been involved in the racket which functioned at international level as infants were sold away to couples from France, Australia and other countries.
The news of Jalpaiguri racket comes months after a similar racket was busted in South Bengal working particularly around Kolkata in which another State BJP leader and a doctor was arrested.
The State BJP also removed Rabindranath Chowdhury the father of Juhi from the State committee party sources said even as CID sources said the police were trying to ascertain the names of some “big fishes who had been helping Chowdhury from behind.”
Reacting to Wednesday’s development Ghosh said that the party will neither call Juhi guilty or innocent adding the “law of the land should prevail.” He maintained “Juhi is our party leader. If she is guilty the party will not take her side and she should be punished as per law,” however the BJP will try to secure her bail as “we don’t hold her guilty now,”
Curiously Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had earlier threatened to respond in equal measures after the CBI arrested senior TMC leader and MPs Sudip Bandopadhyay and Tapas Paul.