2 women brokers held in baby-selling racket

With this, a total of eight individuals including the kingpin couple, Amuthavalli, an assistant nurse and her husband Ravichandran were also arrested so far by the special team of the police force. Other mediators arrested were Parveen, a nurse in a private hospital in Erode, PHC ambulance driver Murugesan, besides Arulsamy and Haseena, both from Erode district. 

Following inquiries with them, the police arrested Selvi, 29 from Bhavani and Leela, 36 from VOC Park in Erode district. “The mediators never disclosed the identity of the buyer to the biological parents who sold their babies. They received payment in several lakhs from childless couples, but gave just a meagre amount to the biological parents,” said a police official. 

Police are now in the process of tracing the identity of those who bought the babies illegally. Meanwhile accepting the recommendations of police, the Namakkal District Public Health Department Deputy Director Ramesh Kumar issued an order dismissing Primary Health Centre (PHC) ambulance driver Murugesan from duty. 

Already Ravichandran, an office assistant at Rasipuram Co-Operative bank has been dismissed from the job. Namakkal Superintendent of Police Arularasu said that their investigations have revealed that 14 babies were sold illegally by the gang. 

“Children can be adopted legally only through the Child Welfare Department, wherein no money needs to be paid. But here everything has happened against the law. If charges are proved, the culprits will get a maximum of five years of imprisonment,” he said. 

In a related development, in a petition at the All Women’s Police Station in Rasipuram, advocate Nalwinai Viswa Raj alleged that a girl baby born at Mohan Kumaramangalam Government Hospital on February 25, 2014 had been sold by the parents for Rs 30,000 to Amuthavalli. 

“She, in turn, sold the baby for Rs 8 lakh to a couple from Sri Lanka. A forged birth certificate was also created stating that the baby was born in a private hospital in Tirupur,” he claimed. The policeare likely to probe into this aspect too. 

As a larger network is suspected and babies were also sold to couples in other districts, the sensational case is likely to be taken over by CB-CID for investigation.