Regret baby selling case, but we are not liable: MoC

RANCHI: The Mother Teresa-founded Missionaries of Charity (MoC) on Tuesday expressed regret over allegations of sale of babies at its shelter home in Ranchi but said it was not responsible for an individual’s actions. It added that the charity will continue to cooperate with the investigation in the case.
Breaking her silence for the first time in two weeks since the incident came to light, MoC superior general Sister M Prema said in a statement that myths, distorted information and baseless allegations were being spread against Mother Teresa’s sisters.“We express regret and sorrow for what happened, but actions of individuals have nothing to do with the congregation,” Prema said.
She said Anima Indwar, a staff at Nirmal Hriday shelter home, had taken the child born of an unwed mother along with her guardians to surrender him to the Child Welfare Committee (CWC).
However, neither MoC nor Nirmal Hriday has any way to ascertain if the child was actually in CWC’s custody, she said, adding that the committe as a matter of practice had never acknowledged if it had indeed received a child from the home, said the statement. It also highlighted that the child in question was born on May 1 after the mother was taken into the home on March 19.
The statement also said Indwar, who had joined as a ward helper in 2012, had gained the trust of the sisters with her work, thereby rising to the post of a staff member. But when she was summoned by the CWC, Indwar admitted that the child was not surrendered to the CWC. Indwar was the first person to be arrested in the case.
Prema’s statement shifted the entire blame on Indwar. It said sister Concelia, in-charge of the home’s unwed mothers section, was responsibile for admission, hospitalization, counselling, record-keeping and accompanying unwed mothers and their babies to CWC. When she was engaged in “pressing responsibilities”, Indwar herself took the babies and their mothers to sadar hospital, Rims and CWC office, the statement said.
The statement added: “On July 4, sister Concelia and sister Marie Deanne, superior of Nirmal Hriday, were questioned by police. Sister Concelia was arrested while Deanne, after being kept in custody till 7pm the next day, was let off. The same evening, CWC, without serving any notice to Nirmal Hriday, took away 11 unwed mothers, one unwed mother along with her baby and one guardian from Nirmal Hriday.”
The nun said police and CWC raided their Shishu Bhawan Home at Hinoo on July 6 and took away 22 children, including a month-old baby who became ill in CWC’s custody and had to be admitted in the ICU at Rani Hospital. Records and registers of the home too were taken away by the officials without providing a seizure receipt, she added.