The Mumbai police’s crime branch unit 1 busted a baby selling racket involving eight people, of which six are women.
The crime branch has booked them under provisions of Juvenile Justice Act and also under sections of Indian Penal Code (IPC). The police suspect that the gang has been trafficking infants for a long time now as they have seized eight mobile phones that have the photos of new born babies.
The police have released the names of six in the gang of eight accused – Arti Hiramani Singh, Rukshar Shaikh, Rupali Verma, Nisha Ahire, Geetanjali Gaikwad and Sanjay Padam.
Yogesh Chavan and Manisha Pawar of crime branch got an input on Saturday that a woman from Dnyaneshwar Nagar in Bandra East was selling babies. The two officials started tracking the whereabouts of this woman and found Rukshar Shaikh who had recently sold a baby girl at the VN Desai hospital.
“During the probe, we found that Rupali Verma had helped one Shahjahan Joglikar to sell her baby to a Pune-based family. It was the second child of Shahjahan that Rupali had helped in selling,” the crime branch officials said. Chavan and Pawar tracked them and Rupali, Shahjahan and Rukshar were nabbed on January 14. They were brought to the police headquarters in Crawford market where all the three were interrogated.
Rukshar and Rupali admitted that they had helped Shahjahan sell her baby girl in 2019 for Rs 60,000 while they sold her second child, a baby boy now for Rs 1.5 lakh. Shahjahan also confessed that she had sold her baby in 2019 to one Sanjay Padam in Dharavi of Mumbai. Later, the interrogation revealed two more names – Heena Khan and Nisha Ahire, who allegedly were agents in this deal. Nisha and Ahire were arrested and they confirmed that Rupali and Rukshar were selling Shahjahan’s babies to Padam.
While the probe till now has revealed that the gang sold four babies, cops suspect that they might have sold more infants. “The gang conducts recce in poor localities and finds pregnant women who they convince for money and sell their babies,” the crime branch officials said. In the meantime, the police will also study the call data records of the eight people, to track if there are more babies sold.
