CBI files chargesheet in Pune adoption racket

Pune, Mar 9: The CBI has filed a chargesheet against the Managing Trustee of city-based orphanage Preet Mandir and five others in connection with an adoption racket. Special Public Prosecutor Vivek Saxena filed the chargesheet before Special Judge S N Sardesai yesterday.

Joginder Singh Bhasin, the Managing Trustee of the foundation, and others have been charged with entering into a criminal conspiracy to kidnap poor children and give them up for adoption.

The five others include Joginder's wife Mahinder, son Gurpreet (both trustees), Chandrashekhar Admane, social worker at Preet Mandir and J K Mittal and former Chairman of the Central Adoption Resource Agency (CARA). The New Delhi-based CARA is the nodal agency for adoption.

According to the chargesheet, Bhasin was involved in the illegal trafficking of children and for this purpose had opened a rehabilitation centre near here in 2004.

In May last year, CBI had said that between 2002 and 2010, the Managing Trustee entered into criminal conspiracy with unknown persons and kidnapped the children of poor people in Maharashtra with a motive to send them in inter-country adoption to extort huge money from the adopting parents.

The CBI took up the case on direction of the Bombay High Court.

PTI