Child selling racket busted: Thane Doctor caught red handed trying to sell 20-day-old infant

Those arrested include the mother of the infant, a 61-year-old doctor and three agents, Thane Crime Branch Unit I senior inspector Dileep Patil told PTI.

In a joint investigation with the Women and Child Welfare Department, the Thane police detained and interrogated the accused.

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According to the police, the doctor is the mastermind behind the child-selling business who has been running the Mahalaxmi Nursing Home in Ulhasnagar for many years.

“We received a tip-off that a woman doctor from Ulhasnagar was selling infants to needy couples. We verified the tip-off through a decoy customer. On May 17, the doctor told the decoy customer there was a 20-day-old boy who he could adopt for Rs 7 lakh,” he said.

As per a media report in India Today, the authorities said that acting on a tip-off, social worker Anita and her two aides - Sonu Punjabi and Sanya Hinduja - went to the nursing home posing as customers.

“She was held while collecting money in her hospital. The other accused include two women from Nashik, a man from Belgaum in Karnataka and the child’s mother, who is also from Nashik,” Patil said.

They have been charged under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act and further probe into the child-selling racket and activities of the accused is underway, the official said.

As per a media report in the Free Press Journal, A case has been registered under section 370 (buying or disposing of any person as a slave), 34 (acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention) of the Indian Penal Code and sections 80 and 81 (any person who sells or buys a child for any purpose) of the Juvenile Justice Act. All the arrested have been sent to police custody.

The police are suspecting the involvement of the arrested accused in many such acts of selling children in the past. Therefore, an investigation is underway 

After the accused have been arrested, the crime branch handed the case to the local Central police station in Ulhasnagar under whose jurisdiction the racket took place, TOI reports.

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