KENDRAPARA: Four accused, including three government employees and a woman worker of a government-run Child Care Institution (CCI), were on Wednesday, remanded to judicial custody after being denied bail in connection with an illegal adoption case of 2018.
They were identified as Purnachandra Adhikari, programme officer of District Child Protection Unit (DCPU), Vivekananda Atibudhi, Legal Probation Officer of DCPU, Rabindra Mahalika, employee of Odisha Livelihood Mission and Renubala Panda, house mother of the CCI, said Marshaghai IIC Pradeep Kanungo.
The accused were booked for facilitating the illegal adoption of a baby girl on January 2, 2018. Sources said, the mother, a 15-year-old SC girl, was allegedly raped by a man and gave birth to the girl at the government hospital in Marshaghai on December 31, 2017.
Later, the mother-daughter duo was shifted to the CCI, run by Lutheran Mahila Samiti, an NGO at Patalipanka village where the officials carried out the adoption without the mother’s consent.
On April 5 this year, the victim informed the chairperson of Odisha State Commission for Protection of Child Rights (OSCPCR) Sandhyabati Pradhan about the incident, leading to an investigation into the matter and subsequent arrest of the accused.