Statewide child trafficking ring busted, 4 held
CHENNAI: In a new twist to a child kidnapping racket busted recently, the Chennai suburban police on Saturday night arrested four women, who were part of the trafficking network and worked for a city-based fertility clinic, indicating the statewide ramifications of the case.
The women, including two ‘ayahs’ working in the hospital, are said to have identified buyers among patients who came to the clinic for treatment. While Nancy and Asha looked after the stolen babies, Kavitha, 33, and Andal, 47, identified a potential buyer for one of the babies.
The development adds another dimension to the child trafficking network, the second big one in recent times to be unearthed by the state police. In 2005, police had cracked an adoption racket involving an agency that sourced kidnapped babies and gave them away in adoption to couples abroad. CBI is still investigating the case. Police suspect that the latest case, involving a gang operating across TN, may have links to networks in other states as well.
Police confirmed that Saturday’s arrests were part of the child abduction racket that came to light when Krishnagiri police arrested seven members of a gang, most of them operating in Chennai and its suburbs. Deputy commissioner of police (Madhavaram), Annie Vijaya, told TOI, “The arrests are a continuation of the child trafficking racked busted in Krishnagiri (in May). We have been exchanging information with the Krishnagiri police and following up leads.”
It was in May that police first arrested several members of a gang and rescued nine babies from them. During interrogation of an accused, Dhanalakshmi, police found that several woman, posing as social workers, and a church priest, father Alphonse, believed to be the kingpin in the racket, were involved in an inter-state racket of stealing and selling babies to childless couples for price ranging from Rs 50,000 to a couple of lakhs of rupees. Those arrested included a woman, M Lalitha, a self-proclaimed social worker, running an orphanage in Puducherry. The woman used the unlicensed orphanage she ran to source babies and sell them to childless couples.
The alleged brain behind the four women arrested on Saturday, Jayaprasad, was picked up in Krishnagiri. Police also rescued two babies from the gang — an eight-month-old girl and a one-year-old baby boy. The children have been handed over to authorities of a government home.