KOLKATA, India: Two child protection officers have been arrested for alleged links with a trafficking gang that ran illegal adoption centers in eastern India selling children to foreign couples, police said Saturday.
Investigators said children aged between six months and 14 years were sold in illegal adoptions to couples from Europe, America and Asia for between $12,000 and $23,000 and taken out of the country.
While India has an estimated 30 million orphans, legal adoption is rare because of strict rules governing the practice and there is a thriving illicit market.
Police arrested two Darjeeling child protection officials, Mrinal Ghosh and Debasish Chanda, on Friday “for their links with the adoption scandal,” Nishat Parvej of the state’s Criminal Investigation Department told AFP.
He said three more government officials had “absconded,” as the widening inquiry into the adoption racket embroils political and administrative figures.
So far six people have been nabbed over the scandal, including Juhi Choudhury, a senior member of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party in West Bengal.
The head of the adoption center at the heart of the scandal, Chandana Chakraborty, told investigators that Choudhury had been involved in child trafficking for several years.
Police arrested Chakraborty, a retired school principal, and her deputy Sonali Mondal last month after a tip-off from the federal adoption agency.
The pair ran the Bimala Sishu Griha center where children were sold abroad through forged documents to couples for as much as 1.5 million rupees ($23,000).
Investigators said the scam had lasted for several years before they started monitoring the charity in June when federal authorities found discrepancies in their records and relocated all the children from the center.
Chakraborty allegedly ran health camps to identify poor and unmarried pregnant women and persuaded them to give up their babies for adoption after paying them.
Experts say lengthy bureaucratic delays and complex rules in the adoption process push desperate couples toward the illegal adoption market.
Only 3,678 children were legally adopted by couples in India between April 2015 and March 2016, according to official data.
The latest scandal comes roughly four months after police arrested 18 people in the same state over a racket that saw gangs steal newborn babies from nursing homes with the intention of selling them.
![]()
India child protection officers held in trafficking probe
India child protection officers held in trafficking probe
De-escalate in Ethiopia’s Tigray before ‘too late’: UN rights chief
- The United Nations rights chief called Tuesday on all parties in the conflicts in Ethiopia to urgently de-escalate amid a precarious situation in the Tigray region
GENEVA: The United Nations rights chief called Tuesday on all parties in the conflicts in Ethiopia to urgently de-escalate amid a precarious situation in the Tigray region.
Recent clashes between the Ethiopian army and regional forces in Tigray highlight the risk of a return to full conflict and a deepening of the human rights crisis in the northern region, Volker Turk warned.
“The situation remains highly volatile, and we fear it will further deteriorate, worsening the region’s already precarious human rights and humanitarian situation,” he said in a statement.
“There must be concerted and sustained efforts by all parties, with the help of the international community, to de-escalate tensions before it is too late.”
The UN rights chief insisted “political dialogue and confidence-building measures are urgently needed — not renewed resort to armed violence.”
The renewed tensions risk a return to conflict following a war between Ethiopian forces and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) that the African Union says killed at least 600,000 people before it ended in late 2022.
More than one million civilians remain internally displaced since the civil war, the UN rights office said.
It voiced deep concern over hostilities that intensified late last month between the Ethiopian military and the regional Tigray Security Forces (TSF) in Tsemlet, western Tigray, an area claimed by forces from the neighboring Amhara region.
The TSF withdrew from the area on February 1.
The rights office highlighted that drones, artillery and other powerful weapons were used by both sides, and both sides engaged in arrests and detentions, Turk saying these activities “must stop.”
In the south and southeast of the Tigray region, near the Afar border, clashes are also continuing between the TSF and rival faction the Tigray Peace Forces.
“Both sides must step back from the brink and work to resolve their differences through political means,” Turk said.
He demanded that all allegations of serious violations and abuses “be promptly and independently investigated, irrespective of the perpetrators.”
Recent clashes between the Ethiopian army and regional forces in Tigray highlight the risk of a return to full conflict and a deepening of the human rights crisis in the northern region, Volker Turk warned.
“The situation remains highly volatile, and we fear it will further deteriorate, worsening the region’s already precarious human rights and humanitarian situation,” he said in a statement.
“There must be concerted and sustained efforts by all parties, with the help of the international community, to de-escalate tensions before it is too late.”
The UN rights chief insisted “political dialogue and confidence-building measures are urgently needed — not renewed resort to armed violence.”
The renewed tensions risk a return to conflict following a war between Ethiopian forces and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) that the African Union says killed at least 600,000 people before it ended in late 2022.
More than one million civilians remain internally displaced since the civil war, the UN rights office said.
It voiced deep concern over hostilities that intensified late last month between the Ethiopian military and the regional Tigray Security Forces (TSF) in Tsemlet, western Tigray, an area claimed by forces from the neighboring Amhara region.
The TSF withdrew from the area on February 1.
The rights office highlighted that drones, artillery and other powerful weapons were used by both sides, and both sides engaged in arrests and detentions, Turk saying these activities “must stop.”
In the south and southeast of the Tigray region, near the Afar border, clashes are also continuing between the TSF and rival faction the Tigray Peace Forces.
“Both sides must step back from the brink and work to resolve their differences through political means,” Turk said.
He demanded that all allegations of serious violations and abuses “be promptly and independently investigated, irrespective of the perpetrators.”
Latest updates
Recommended
© 2026 SAUDI RESEARCH & PUBLISHING COMPANY, All Rights Reserved And subject to Terms of Use Agreement.