Rs 1.5 lakh for one-month-old baby: Two women accused in kidnapping denied bail

The accused were booked for kidnapping and child trafficking related offences under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), along with other offences under the Juvenile Justice Act relating to kidnapping and abduction of a child.

Justice B R Madhusudhan heard a bail plea of two women involved in an alleged child trafficking case.

Alleged kidnapping of infant, five accused 

The case arose when the mother of the child lodged a complaint on June 30, stating that she was sleeping on the footpath along with her husband and their one-month-old baby girl, who was lying beside her. On hearing the cries of the baby, they woke up and saw that two unknown persons had kidnapped their baby and were fleeing in a green coloured auto-rickshaw. Based on the complaint, an FIR was registered. 

The case diary on July 3 suggested that five accused persons were arrested on July 2 and were produced before the magistrate. The remand report disclosed that the police identified the auto with the help of CCTV footage; it further stated that two persons kidnapped the baby and went to a house belonging to another accused and informed an unknown woman about the successful kidnapping.

According to the facts, the recipient of the information thereafter went to the accused’s house to verify the baby, took pictures and sent the same on WhatsApp to an unknown woman. After seeing the photographs, she had agreed to purchase the infant for a total consideration of Rs 1.5 lakh, and transferred the agreed amount to one of the accused who kidnapped the baby. Further, the remand report disclosed that the alleged purchaser travelled from Kolkata to Hyderabad by flight and met the woman who had sent her the pictures.

Women sought bail

The counsel appearing for two accused women submitted that the allegations of kidnapping the infant were exclusively against the other two accused. It was stated that the actual act of kidnapping the child from the custody of the parents near Lingampalli railway station was attributed to the other two women only. 

It was argued that they were not apprehended from the scene of the offence; their implication was solely based on the alleged disclosure statements of the co-accused. The counsel added that the petitioners were in judicial custody since July 2; the infant girl had already been rescued by the police and restored to the parents. The role attributed to the petitioners was fundamentally different from that of the principal accused. 

The counsel argued that the petitioners had acted on the instigation of the other woman, got involved in the alleged act of adoption, and since the investigation was over, they sought bail.

The Additional Public Prosecutor appearing for the State submitted that this was a case of child trafficking coupled with kidnapping of a one-month-old infant girl, and the role of the accused women was depicted in the remand case diary, and prayed for dismissal of the petition.

Bail denied

The court observed that the case involved serious allegations of child trafficking and the kidnapping of a one-month-old infant against the two women seeking bail and held that they were not entitled to bail and accordingly dismissed their bail petition.