κ§Mumbai Police arrested a 32-year-old woman from Dadar for allegedly selling her 45-day-old girl child in a bid to raise money to post bail for her husband who was arrested for stealing scrap from railway premises.
βA preliminary probe revealed that the entire incident was associated with a suspected child trafficking racket leading all the way to Karnataka.
What did the police say?
πAs per reports, Mumbai police acted on a complaint from 51-year-old Pramila Pawar who claimed that her daughter-in-law Manisha Yadav had sold her baby girl to some people in Bengaluru. The investigation is at a preliminary stage and, police said, they need more details to before they can provide a clearer picture of how the racket operated.
βWe registered a case under Sections 143 (trafficking of person) of the Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita, and under various sections of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015,β said deputy commissioner of police, R Ragasudha of Zone IV, as per a report by the Hindustan Times.
ΰ·΄The DCP further added that suspecting the case of a trafficking racket, teams were dispatched quickly to various places, including Ulhasnagar, Surat and Vadodara.
πPolice rescued the infant and the mother Karnataka's Karwar and arrested eight others associated with the case. Police said all the accused have been remanded to police custody till December 19.
ALSO READ | West Bengal Child Trafficking Accused Names BJP Leaders Roopa Ganguly, Vijayvargiya
Who all have been arrested?
πPolice arrested the infant's mother Manisha Yadav and Sulochana Kamble, the house-help who helped Manisha to sell her daughter.
πThe list of arrested people include Mira Yadav, 40, a nurse; Yogesh Bhoir, 37, a property agent from Sewri; Roshni Ghosh, 34, a marriage broker and resident of Kalyan; Sandhya Rajput, 48, also a marriage broker and a resident of Ulhasnagar maker; Madina Chavan, 44, also a marriage broker of sorts and a resident of Vadodara; Tainaz Chavan, 19, a house-help from Vadodara; and Baby Tamboli, 50, from Miraj.
π¦©Futher commenting on the matter, a police officer said, βThe baby was sold for rupees 4 lakh. However, the mother got only rupees 1.5 lakh and the remaining sum was taken by middlemen. We have learned that the main accused, who we have just detained and cannot name, has similarly sold four more children. They are not from Mumbai. He has also claimed that some doctors from Karnataka are involved in the racketβ, as per Hindustan Times.
