Jalpaiguri: The CID tonight made another arrest in the sensational Jalpaiguri child trafficking case taking the number of arrests to 3.
A senior district official said Manas Bhowmik was arrested after prolonged interrogations by CID sleuths at Kotwali police station on charge of involvement in selling children to foreign couples with fake papers from the NGO Bimala Sishu Griho in past months.
The arrest followed the arrests of Sonali Mondal, Chief Adoption Officer of the said NGO and Chandana Chakraborty, Chairperson, by a seven-member CID team in past couple of days.
The three were charged with selling at least 17 children, aged between 1-14 years, to foreign buyers at high price while falsely claiming that the children were handed over for legal adoption to needy couples after due screening and official procedures.
A CID officer did not disclose where the children were at present but said the NGO was under radar for several months.
Earlier CID blew off the lid of a child trafficking racket conducting raids in homes and nursing homes in Baduria and Behala (North/South 24 Parganas districts), Kolkata and some other parts of south Bengal since November last year.