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Mangaldai, July 27: Darrang Police arrested three persons—two from Gerimari in Mangaldai and one from Salbari, Abhayapuri—in connection with the trafficking of a two-and-a-half-year-old male child.
Earlier, the child was rescued and kept in the One Stop Centre. According to Sub Inspector Takar Pegu, an investigating police officer, the investigation had started on the basis of a complaint from the district child protection unit, Darrang, that one individual, a native of Kalaigaon in Udalguri district and at present staying in a rented house in Gerimari village, sold one of his four stepchildren. Police picked up the accused, who is a hotel boy, and during interrogation he confessed before police that he sold the child to one Parimal Mandal of Salbari area against an amount of Rs. 30,000 via their relative, who is a neighbour of the stepfather.
Subsequently, the childless Mandal family from Salbari took the child out of Mangaldai on July 5. On the basis of the statement of the stepfather, police rescued the child on Wednesday. Later, police arrested the stepfather, Parimal Mandal, and the middleman by registering a case (no. 194/24) in this connection.
On Thursday, all three accused persons were remanded to judicial custody by the court. Meanwhile, the child was produced on Friday before the district child welfare committee (CWC), and Darrang and the committee handed over the child to the authorities of the Specialised Adoption Agency (SAA) for necessary care.