Stolen from a train, saved by surveillance: How a mother got her baby back
The Raebareli Police in Uttar Pradesh arrested nine people in an inter-state infant trafficking bust
After the kidnapping, the accused allegedly contacted other members of the network to sell children to people seeking to adopt or obtain a child illegally, they added.
Police in Uttar Pradesh’s Raebareli on Wednesday arrested nine persons, including four women, in connection with an alleged inter-state gang involved in the theft and sale of newborn children.
Police said the arrests were made during an investigation into the abduction of an infant from her mother at a railway station. The nine-month-old child was recovered through surveillance operations and coordinated field action, police added.
“We suspect that more people may be linked to the network and the investigation is continuing,” said Raebareli Additional Superintendent of Police (ASP) Alok Singh.
The arrested suspects are from different districts and Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, he added.
According to the police, the complainant, who was from Madhya Pradesh and lived with her husband in Delhi, was travelling by train with her two children on May 13 after a domestic dispute. During the journey, she befriended an unidentified man and woman, who gradually gained her trust.
Before the train reached Raebareli, the woman took the complainant’s nine-month-old child on the pretext of feeding and caring for him. After arriving at the railway station, the couple allegedly took the mother towards a food stall and fled with the infant.
The woman later filed a kidnapping case at the Kotwali Nagar police station in Raebareli. Police also added charges related to human trafficking in the case.
Police launched an investigation, using CCTV footage, surveillance inputs, railway station monitoring and human intelligence to identify the suspects and trace the child’s movements.
Acting on technical and intelligence inputs on Wednesday, they arrested the accused near the Railway Colony area and recovered the abducted child, and seized the vehicle allegedly used in the crime.
Police said the accused operated an organised network involved in the abduction and sale of newborn and infant children. The gang allegedly targeted vulnerable women travelling alone with small children at railway stations, bus stands and other public places, they said.
After the kidnapping, the accused allegedly contacted other members of the network to sell children to people seeking to adopt or obtain a child illegally, they added.
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