The special investigation team of Crime Branch police, probing two incidents of alleged trafficking in which 589 children from Bihar, Jharkhand, and West Bengal were brought to Palakkad in May, has decided to seek forensic help to confirm the authenticity of documents submitted by the orphanages involved to claim that the children are orphans.
Crime Branch Dy.SP S Ananthakrishnan said a thorough examination by forensic experts was required to check the genuineness of 211 certificates, claimed to have been issued by local village officers and block panchayat authorities in the three States to justify the sending of such a large number of children to orphanages in Kerala.
Probe by the special investigation team led by Crime Branch SP K. Vijayan is almost nearing completion and the chargesheet would be filed soon after forensic experts gave their report. The documents are likely to be checked at Kerala State Forensic Lab in Thiruvananthapuram.
There were allegations right from the beginning that most documents produced before the probe team were fake and were prepared by intermediaries to help the orphanages. The investigation team has seized a set of computers allegedly used by the intermediaries to prepare supporting documents to facilitate the trafficking.
Meanwhile, the Kerala High Court is considering a Public Interest Litigation seeking Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the episode saying such an investigation is necessary as the sensitive case involved four States and two orphanages run by religious minority groups. The amicus curiae in the case informed the court that the children were brought to the State by violating norms. Among the eleven persons arrested in connection with the incident, five have obtained bail. The first batch of 466 children, which reached Palakkad by the Patna-Ernakulam Express, comprised natives of Bihar and Jharkhand while the second batch of 123 children came from West Bengal by the Guwahati-Thiruvananthapuram Express. Apart from 211 children, the rest had no documents to support their claim that they are orphans.
