A doctor is among three more women arrested here on Monday as part of a recently busted child-trafficking network that sold off a baby boy four times within a few days of birth.
Police produced the accused — Dr Reena of Jaswant Hospital near Dakoha, Manpreet Kaur of Sirhind in Fatehgarh Sahib, and Jyoti of Nakodar — in a local court and claimed that a Mithu Basti woman, Saroj, had sold the baby to Jyoti for Rs 3.3 lakh through neighbourhood contact Kuldeep Kaur. Jyoti passed on the infant to Dr Reena for Rs 3.5 lakh, the doctor sold it to Manpreet Kaur for Rs 4.10 lakh, and then an Uttarakhand couple bought him for Rs 4.5 lakh, say cops.
Read: Child-trafficking racket busted in Jalandhar, 2 doctors among 6 held
Police secured two-day custody of the accused to trace the infant and recover him from Uttarakhand. Additional deputy commissioner of police-2 Amrik Singh Powar said more arrests were coming. In October 2013, the Ludhiana police had arrested Mithu Basti woman Kuldeep Kaur in another child-trafficking case. On July 17, two more women — Dr Ramandeep Kaur (29) of Banga’s Patti Mattwali village and Seema (28) of Baba Bakala in Amritsar district — were sent to the Kapurthala jail in a child-trafficking case.
Dr Vishal Bhanot (45) of Jalandhar’s Urban Estate Phase-2 and Harjinder Kaur (30) of Sangat Singh Nagar were the others arrested in a case of selling a four-month-old boy for Rs 5 lakh at Hotel Baj Celebration on the Garha road here on July 14. The baby’s maternal grandmother, Asha (50), and grandfather, Brij Mohan (55), of Madhuban Colony in the Jalandhar’s Basti Bawa Khel area were also taken into custody.
{{/usCountry}}Dr Vishal Bhanot (45) of Jalandhar’s Urban Estate Phase-2 and Harjinder Kaur (30) of Sangat Singh Nagar were the others arrested in a case of selling a four-month-old boy for Rs 5 lakh at Hotel Baj Celebration on the Garha road here on July 14. The baby’s maternal grandmother, Asha (50), and grandfather, Brij Mohan (55), of Madhuban Colony in the Jalandhar’s Basti Bawa Khel area were also taken into custody.
{{/usCountry}}Dr Ramandeep Kaur is general manager of City ART Services sperm bank and surrogacy clinic running from a rented accommodation in Jalandhar’s Gian Nagar locality.