Ghaziabad: Five of gang held for kidnapping infants, selling them to childless couples
Police said teams are working on arresting the absconding suspects Lateef and Saivta and also couples who procured infants from the gang
The Ghaziabad police on Wednesday four women and a man for allegedly abducting infants from Ghaziabad and selling them to childless couples, senior police officers said, adding that they also rescued a three-month-old boy who was allegedly kidnapped by the gang from outside MMG district hospital on August 5.
Police identified the arrested suspects as Lokesh Arora, 32, his wife Kavita Arora, 30, Sulekha Mandal, 34, Phool Bai Ahirwar, 35, and her daughter Kavita, 18. They said two others, Lateef (single name), 45, and Savita Devi, 35, are currently on the run.
According to police, Phool Bai and her friend Lateef got to know that one of their neighbours, Shrishti Prajapati, in Ghaziabad’s Mehrauli gave birth to a boy about three months ago and decided to kidnap him. Investigators said Phool Bai got to know that on August 5, Shrishti and her child would be visiting MMG district hospital for a routine checkup and decided to abduct the baby. She enlisted the help of her daughter Kavita and asked her to accompany Shrishti, police said.
Meanwhile, Lateef got his accomplice Lokesh Arora to pose as an auto driver and suspect Savita Devi to pose as his passenger, police said.
As per the plan, Kavita pretended to become friendly with Savita outside the hospital and made Shrishti hand over the baby to her while they went in to get the appointment slip ready. Savita assured the women that she would take care of the child and wait for them in the auto.
Police said Arora and Savita fled with the child to Arora’s house in Sanjay Nagar. From there, Savita went absconding.
“Arora’s wife was taking care of the child. The couple, as instructed by Lateef, was to hand over the baby to a woman named Sulekha Devi, who lives in Dadri in Gautam Budh Nagar. Police said Devi was in touch with a childless couple who allegedly promised to pay her ₹3.5 lakh for a baby,” said Rajesh Kumar, deputy commissioner of police (city zone).
“In the meantime, when Shrishti could not find Savita or her baby outside the hospital, she filed a police complaint and several police teams were roped in to trace the suspects. The team used CCTV footage and electronic surveillance to zero in on the suspects. When Sulekha arrived in Ghaziabad to collect the child from Arora’s home, the police arrested the three suspects and rescued the child,” DCP Kumar said.
Police said a case was registered under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita sections 137(2) (kidnapping), 143(5) (trafficking of more than one child) and 3(5) (individuals acting with common intention) at the Kotwali police station.
During questioning, the suspects revealed the names of other suspects and police arrested Phool Bai and her daughter Kavita.
“Sulekha Devi and Lokesh’s wife Kavita Arora are also into midwifery and they told police that both had opted to be surrogates to two childless couples, and they each delivered a child about a year ago. They handed over the two newborns to the couples and received ₹3 lakh for each baby. Because surrogacy takes time, they decided to kidnap infants. They kidnapped a child from outside a shanty in Madhuban Bapudham a couple of months ago and gave the child to a woman named Anjali, who lives in Delhi,” Kumar said.
Police said teams are working on arresting the absconding suspects Lateef and Saivta and also couples who procured infants from the gang.
“We are questioning the arrested suspects and they admitted to kidnapping a boy from Madhuban Bapudham area. An FIR of kidnapping was lodged soon after the boy went missing,” said Abhishek Srivastava, assistant commissioner of police, Kavi Nagar.