The Chennai police busted a child trafficking racket that had spread its web from Uttar Pradesh to the city, on Monday. The criminal activity came to light and was investigated after Yogesh Kumar, a Madras High Court advocate trainee, filed a case at the Kilpauk police station over suspicions that his wife had illegally procured a newborn baby.
Yogesh and Padmini got married in February 2016 and just one month later his wife allegedly claimed to be pregnant. According to the police she had a condition which made it difficult for her to conceive a child and thus she faked a pregnancy.
"She seems to have had a problem conceiving and decided to adopt a child without the knowledge of her in-laws," says C Shyamala Devi, the DCP who led a special team to nab the child-trafficking group. "Once she was in her parents' home, she went online and posted that she was looking for a child on a website where people buy and sell other goods. That is how a broker found her and “sold” the baby girl," she explains.
On January 11, 2017, Padmini told her husband that she had given birth to a girl at the Government Hospital for Women and Children in Egmore. But before her husband could reach the hospital from the court, she came back to her parents' residence with the baby. Following this, Kumar filed a petition at the Madras High Court, which directed the child trafficking unit of the city police to probe the matter.
When investigations began, it soon came to light, that the child had been trafficked from a family in Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh. Jeya Sharma (39) and Amit Sharma (42) gave birth to a third child in January 2017 and wanted to sell the baby since they could not take care of the baby.