Ranchi: Deputy commissioner Rai Mahimapat Ray has shot letters to social welfare departments of Bihar, Bengal and Odisha, besides child welfare committees of 13 districts in Jharkhand, requesting leads on more than 50 unwed and underage mothers who stayed at Nirmal Hriday between March 2016 and June this year.
The objective is to ascertain if the infants or toddlers are still with their biological mothers in the wake of alleged baby trafficking from the Missionaries of Charity-run shelter on Jail Road here.
Ray told The Telegraph that he had requested the authorities concerned to trace these girls whose names appear on a register seized during an inspection at Nirmal Hriday in the last week of June and whose details the shelter had not shared with the child welfare committee.
The seized register contained details of admission and discharge of 110 unwed mothers. Their names and contact addresses are mentioned, and in some cases, mobile phone numbers too. Out of these 110 cases, the shelter had allegedly concealed information of 58.
“We need to find these girls to know if their babies are with them. The statement of biological mothers is crucial to the investigations against Nirmal Hriday,” Ray said.
Sources added that the letters to different states and district were dispatched a week ago.
According to records accessed by this newspaper, two unwed and underage mothers are from Bihar while one each are from Bengal and Odisha.
There were 11 from Gumla, nine from Ranchi, eight from Dumka, five from Sahebganj and three from Khunti. Two minor mothers were from Lohardaga, Ramgarh, West Singhbhum and Godda each while there were one each from Pakur, Jamtara, Simdega and Giridih districts.
Sources said description and details of two unwed mothers was vague while four others had already been traced after police found foster parents of their children.
The Ranchi child welfare committee has, meanwhile, decided to hand over a newborn boy to his mentally challenged mother from Khunti.
The minor girl is among 13 shifted to a government shelter in Namkum after the Nirmal Hriday racket surfaced on July 3. A survivor of gang rape, she delivered her baby three weeks ago.
A child welfare official said the mother who is mentally ill grows restless when separated from her baby. “She will keep her baby, but remain under constant supervision of maternal grandmother, Khunti police and district child welfare committee,” he said.
(The Telegraph)