On June 2, 2022, a 16-year-old girl walked into the Erode South police station to file a complaint. Her narration of the ordeal she was put through since 2017 went on to kick up a storm in the infertility treatment sector in Tamil Nadu. In four years, she was forced to sell her oocytes eight times to various Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) clinics in Erode, Perundurai, Salem and Hosur with a forged Aadhaar card. She had also been raped multiple times, she said.
The girl’s complaint led investigators to an illegal sale of oocytes for fertility treatments involving hospitals not just in the western belt but as far as Tirupati and Thiruvananthapuram. Four persons, including her mother, are behind bars now. In her complaint, the girl, a Class VIII dropout, said her mother separated from her father when she was three years old and had since been living with A. Syed Ali, 40. She said that after she attained puberty at 12, she was sexually assaulted by Syed Ali in the presence of her mother.
The ordeal did not stop there. The minor girl was taken to hospitals in Erode, Perundurai, Salem and Hosur, where her oocytes were sold eight times since 2017. Her mother and Syed Ali received ₹20,000 for each visit to hospital, while intermediary K. Malathi, 36, received ₹5,000 in commission. Since she was a minor, an Aadhaar card with a different name and address and her date of birth as 1995 was forged for the purpose. A. John, 25, a van driver, prepared the fake Aadhaar card, which was used to commit the offence in hospitals.
