Several cases of babies being sold after childbirth have been reported in the past few days, giving rise to fears of infant-selling gangs operating in the State.
Sources say such gangs have been operating in the twin Telugu States, with many cases going unreported. Hospital ‘ayahs’, security guards, Registered Medical Practitioners (RMPs), and domestic helps, who enjoy mostly unrestricted access to maternity wards, are usually the ones who operate in these gangs.
The modus operandi of these racketeers is to keep an eye on women who get admitted to hospitals for delivery and collect the family’s details. If they come to know that the family’s financial condition is in a pitiable state, the racketeers then approach one of the family members and convince them to sell the infant to them after childbirth for an attractive sum of money.
The two infant sale cases that occurred at Aswaraopet in Telangana and at Mangalagiri a few days ago shocked officials. In both the cases, the babies changed hands five times. Another female infant, who was sold for ₹60,000, was rescued and shifted to the Shishu Gruha in Eluru in February, according to officials.
“The gang shifted the baby to Eluru, Rajamahendravaram, Visakhapatnam and Anakapalli and an amount of ₹5 lakh changed hands. The crime indicates that the infant was not procured by the issueless couples, and a gang was organising the illegal trade for money, but the A.P. police have not swung into action so far,” said a Women Development and Child Welfare Department official.
According to sources, the woman, G. Chilakamma, and her husband Arun Kumar, who sold off their newborn son at Aswaraopet, had reportedly undergone abortions twice. The couple has two children.
Now, officials are in the dark on whether Chilakamma’s pregnancies were really terminated. They suspect that it is possible that the woman’s ‘abortions’ never occurred, and that the babies delivered on both occasions were sold to mediators who in turn sold the infants to other people for higher sums of money.
Though the Juvenile Justice Committee (JJC) directed the officials to submit a report regarding the case, the Juvenile Welfare Department, which was the nodal agency for implementation of the JJ Act, 2015, the Women Development and Child Welfare, Police and other departments reportedly have not registered any case so far.
AP State Commission for Protection of Child Rights (APSCPCR) former Member V. Gandhi Babu on Tuesday sought a thorough probe into the incidents in the State
