New Delhi After the CNN-IBN Special Investigation exposed child trafficking at a Pune based adoption agency, the CBI was asked to investigate and its preliminary findings seem to clear the adoption agency. The CBI in its preliminary enquiry on the matter has given a clean chit to the agency involved.
The CBI has relied on testimonies of unwed mothers saying they willingly handed over their babies for adoption. But one such mother says she was never questioned by the CBI.
“No one from CBI approached me. I didn't give up my child. I was just told to sign,” says the mother.
The Maharashtra Government had initially recommended the suspension of Preet Mandir's foreign adoption license, after confirming that extra donations taken from foreign parents had not been documented.
But three months later, the Maharashtra Women and Child Welfare Department did a strange U-turn, saying they found no evidence of child trafficking or sale of children outside the adoption process.
The home for unwed mothers in Talegaon, exposed as a source of cheap babies to sell abroad not only got a clean chit but was also commended for its welfare work.
The cover-up was complete in January 2007, when Dr Jagannath Pati from the Central regulatory authority CARA, visited Preet Mandir only to say that he found no cases there of babies being snatched from biological parents or of foreign couples being preferred to Indian adoptive parents.
At no point did the CBI or the Maharashtra Government or the Central Adoption Regulatory Authority ask the investigation for documents in its possession that showed how adoption agencies were involved in child trafficking. Yet they have given clean chits to the agencies involved.
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