On July 30, the Dholka town police station in Ahmedabad received a call from an inconsolable woman, informing the officer on duty that her infant had been kidnapped.
The homeless balloon seller from Rajasthan’s Tonk lives in a tent in this town situated in Ahmedabad Rural. This morning, she had placed her child in a makeshift cradle hanging on the side of the road and gone to attend nature’s call. When she returned after a few minutes, she found the child, a seven-month-old girl, missing.
Two days later, on Friday, a joint team of Ahmedabad Rural Police and the Aurangabad Crime Branch managed to track down the child in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, situated over 620 kms away, right around the time she was about to be sold off to a buyer based in the Maharashtra city.
Though the child was reunited with her mother, the arrest of five people in the case and their interrogation revealed that the accused were involved in multiple cases of child trafficking pertaining to the sale of kidnapped infants to childless couples, police said.
It all began a few years ago, police said, when Manisha Mahesh Solanki, resident of Kheda and the prime accused in the kidnapping and attempted trafficking of the 7-month-old girl, began selling her eggs to an IVF centre to earn an extra buck.
“When Manisha could no longer do so (due to a possible health issue), she began convincing other women to sell their eggs and earned a commission in the process. At the IVF centre, she realised there was a high demand for infants among childless couples. So, she began procuring and selling children,” said Om Prakash Jat, SP of Ahmedabad Rural Police.
Besides Manisha, police have arrested four other people allegedly involved in attempted trafficking of the Dholka infant. Police said they are hoping to make more arrests in the next few days.
The disappearance, probe and rescue
On how the Dholka infant’s case was cracked, SP Jat said, “Since the child is only seven months old, we began with the premise that it could have been the handiwork of a trafficking gang, a beggar gang, or a childless couple.”
Police then started scanning CCTV footage around the site where the alleged kidnapping took place. Police zeroed in on a bike carrying a couple. Since the registration number of the vehicle was not clearly visible in the footage, police began knocking at the doors of people living in the vicinity and finally reached the owner of the bike. However, his questioning revealed that someone else had borrowed the vehicle on the day of the kidnapping. The bike owner shared a number with the police, who traced it to Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar. The phone belonged to Jayesh Trikam Beldar.
“At that point, we learned that two women, Binal Praful Solanki and Manisha, could be involved in the case. We sought help from the Aurangabad Police whose Crime Branch helped us track our suspects. Our team, led by sub-inspector Sukhi Mali, reached a bus stand and nabbed Binal, Manisha and Jayesh. The child was in their possession,” said SP Jat.
The police also arrested a fourth person, Siddhant alias Samadhan Kevalrao Jagtap, who the police believed had come to “take delivery” of the child. The child was rescued and immediately handed back to the mother who had accompanied the Ahmedabad police in the operation to identify the infant.
The Ahmedabad police received a transfer remand of the four accused and brought them back to Gujarat. Here, police learnt that Manisha’s husband Mahesh Govind Solanki had also allegedly helped the accused. This made him the fifth accused in the case, said police.
All the accused were booked under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) sections 137(2) (kidnapping), 143(4) (human trafficking), and 61(2) (criminal conspiracy). Police are also considering booking them under BNS section 111 (organised crime), confirmed a senior official.
From egg donation to child trafficking
Police said the entire planning to kidnap the Ahmedabad infant was allegedly done by Manisha, who had been working at a private company in Dholka since 2021. “Realising that there was money to be made by paid egg donation, she began doing so, earning around Rs 25,000 to Rs 30,000. Besides, she was promised a commission of Rs 4,000 if she convinced another woman to do so. Manisha then convinced her neighbour Binal. However, at some point, possibly due to low ovarian reserves, they could not donate eggs anymore,” said police.
Having frequented IVF centres for a couple of years now, the women realised that there is a huge demand for children among childless couples, said police. “In this (Ahmedabad) particular case, they saw the homeless girl as an easy target and planned to kidnap her. However, this girl wasn’t their first victim,” said Superintendent of Police (SP) Jat.
Manisha confessed that she had already sold four children — three in Hyderabad and one in Mumbai — earning Rs 3.5 to 4 lakh per child, said police.
“During interrogation, Manisha said this was the first time that she had kidnapped a child. In other cases, she may have convinced poor parents to sell their children or had procured them from someone who had kidnapped them,” said the SP.
At this point, it had become clear to investigators that this was a likely child trafficking ring with more players than they had initially thought.
Search for more victims
The Ahmedabad Rural Police, on the instructions of DGP Vikas Sahay, have sent out an alert to find out if any other child, up to two years of age, had gone missing in the last two years in the state. They found 13 such cases, which were either solved or in which investigations are currently underway, said police. Since the profiles of these 13 cases did not match the current investigation, Police are looking into the possibility that the parents of the four earlier victims may have sold them off to this gang.
Police said the travel history of Manisha and Jayesh is quite extensive, ranging from Tamil Nadu to Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh to Telangana, besides Maharashtra. Police said there is a possibility that these visits were related to egg donation or trafficking of children. Investigation into this thread remains underway.
The child was reunited with her mother. (Express Photo) 
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