KOLKATA: How did West Bengal’s crime detectives manage to nab Juhee Choudhury, the BJP leader who is accused to be involved in a child trafficking racket based in Jalpaiguri?
The West Bengal women’s wing leader was nabbed by West Bengal Crime Investigation Department (CID) sleuths while on the Indo-Nepal international border while trying to flee the country.
She was wanted for her role in a child trafficking racket run by a Jalpaiguri woman Chandana Chakraborty, on whose behalf Juhee Choudury was lobbying major BJP leaders, including the Rajya Sabha MP Roopa Ganguly and the BJP national general secretary Kailash Vaijayvargiya, both of whom have denied any involvement.
Sources in the CID revealed to New Indian Express that two detectives - a man and a woman -- disguised themselves as hermits to track down Juhee Choudhury to Batasi village on the international border.
The duo, Sougata Ghosh and Kakoli Ghosh Kundu, befriended local people in Batasi village by putting it about that they were there to drum up support for renovation of local religious sites by the West Bengal government.
Before zeroing in on Batasi village, the two detectives contacted the relatives of Juhee Choudhury’s boyfriend and won their confidence. The relatives provided clues to the possible location of Juhee’s hideout.
Meanwhile, Juhee’s cellphone location was tracked to Batasi and they zeroed in on the village. “They detectives nabbed her just before Juhee was to cross over to Nepal," a CID official told New Indian Express.
Juhee’s revelations
Since her capture, Juhee Choudhury has been revealing to her CID interrogators that she and Chandana Chakraborty were planning to open four new shelter homes in north Bengal. It was in pursuit of that objective that they met a top BJP MP in central Kolkata in January this year to lobby for clearances.
Juhee Choudhury is also said to have revealed that she was advised by a BJP woman MP to go into hiding in Nepal until the case cooled.
Since her capture, Juhee Choudhury has been removed from her post of general secretary of the West Bengal Mahila Morcha by the party leadership.
Chandana Chakraborty, the owner of the Jalpaiguri shelter homes that are in the the eye of the storm, had claimed that Juhee Choudhury lobbied the BJP's Rajya Sabha MP Roopa Ganguly and national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya to influence the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) go give her central aid of Rs 22 lakh and renew the licences of her shelter homes.