Suspecting foul play in the increasing baby-selling charges against Missionaries of Charity nuns, a Catholic bishop in eastern India has demanded a high-level probe into the role of a government agency.

Auxiliary Bishop Theodore Mascarenhas of Ranchi made the demand on Nov. 20, days after state police raided a convent in his Jharkhand State in connection with three cases of baby selling registered against the nuns.

He wants India’s top investi-gating agency, the Central Bureau of Investigation, to probe the role of the government’s Child Welfare Committee (CWC) in the cases.

“Police have been registering false cases against innocent nuns for helping beleaguered unwed mothers,” Bishop Mascarenhas told ucanews.

The November 18 raid on a Missionaries of Charity convent in Dumka town was “the latest in a series of calculated attacks on the nuns,” the bishop said.

The police, working under the state government of the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), were “fabricating” the cases, he alleged.