27 more held in inter-state infant trafficking case, 10 babies rescued

Hyderabad: The police have arrested 27 more people and rescued 10 babies, in connection with the interstate infant trafficking racket busted in February.

Earlier, 18 people including those who illegally bought the infants and sold them through mediators to childless couples in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana were arrested in connection with the racket and four infants from Gujarat were rescued.

The interrogation of three accused, who purchased and sold infants, led to the arrest of 27 more accused including a 29-year-old woman, (prime accused), a resident of Hyderabad, police said.

Further investigation has revealed that a total of 25 infants were illegally bought and sold, Rachakonda Police Commissioner G Sudheer Babu told reporters here.

“While four infants were rescued earlier, 10 infants—six girls and four boys have been rescued now, and 11 remain to be rescued,” he said. Special teams were formed and deployed for further rescue of the infants.

The infants boys and girls, aged one month and above were bought in Mumbai, Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh, Raipur (Chhattisgarh), Amravati (Maharashtra) and Hyderabad, police said.

They were sold in Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Guntur in Andhra Pradesh.

The infants were bought for amounts ranging from Rs 2 lakh to Rs 5 lakh and resold for Rs 3 lakh to Rs 6 lakh, they said.

On the modus operandi, police said the accused used to collect details of childless couple seeking children and later through social media secured the contacts of accused persons from other states, who were also illegally buying and selling the infants.