Friends were separated by adoption to families in Canada and Norway

Ten years ago, two best friends at an orphanage in India were separated. Tara Singh was four when she was adopted into a Kelowna, B.C., family, while a family in Norway welcomed five year old Anna Dalhaug.

The two girls have kept in touch through Facebook, but for the first time since their adoptions, they were reunited in Canada thanks to Mohini Singh, Tara's adoptive mother.

"Well my daughter really has missed Anna for 10 years, so my gift to her was we were going to help Anna come to Canada so they could have this reunion," Mohini Singh told Daybreak South's Chris Walker. Tara was very emotional about this relationship and I felt this would complete the circle for her."

Tara says she still remembers the first time she met her friend Anna.

CID sleuths interrogating couples who bought babies from the racket. Though they can be charged with trafficking and take the babies away, the investigators are treading cautiously.

Criminal Investigation Department (CID) sleuths were shocked to find out on Wednesday that one of the members of the recently busted baby sale racket sold a baby to her own maternal uncle for an amount of Rs 2 lakh.

Paramita Chatterjee, who was associated with Sree Krishna Nursing Home on College Street and arrested for her involvement in the racket, sold a baby a year-and-a-half old.

On Tuesday and Wednesday CID officers interrogated three couples from the city and outskirts, who bought babies from the recently busted racket, to find out how they were rearing the kids. The investigators are likely to continue the interrogation of more couple in the next few days.

Of the three couples questioned were the uncle of Chatterjee and his wife, a couple who live in Kalindi and another couple from the city.

According to the police, D Vijayalakshmi (30), who eked out a living by begging near the Secunderabad Railway Station, allegedly sold her son, Akhil, due to poverty

Hyderabad: A 10-month-old baby boy, who was sold by his own mother for Rs 60,000, was rescued by the LB Nagar police and shifted to Shishu Vihar. The mother, who cooked up a kidnap story and even staged an accident to mislead the police, was arrested along with the man who ‘purchased’ the baby.

According to the police, D Vijayalakshmi (30), who eked out a living by begging near the Secunderabad Railway Station, allegedly sold her son, Akhil, due to poverty. She then lodged a complaint with the police stating that an unidentified couple kidnapped Akhil at Gunti Jangaiah Colony in LB Nagar.

She said the couple, who came on a scooter, hit her. When she fell unconscious, they picked up Akhil and fled, she alleged. The police, who collected surveillance camera footage from the spot, identified the registration number of the scooter and tracked down the vehicle owner, Oraganti Mosha — a pushcart vendor from Chatanpally in Farooq Nagar of Ranga Reddy district.

The police arrested Mosha, and during questioning, he confessed that Vijayalakshmi actually sold the baby to him. He also said that the accident scene was staged. “He confessed to have purchased the infant from Vijayalakshmi for Rs 60,000 in Shadnagar recently. When we questioned the mother, she too confessed to selling the child due to poverty,” police said, adding that the woman approached other people in Shadnagar as well to sell the child. But, she struck a deal with Mosha.

According to crime branch officials, Sharma’s name surfaced during the investigation. Since Sharma was into the fertility business.

Mumbai: Mumbai crime branch investigating inter-state baby selling racket has arrested a Delhi-based fertility centre owner. The accused has been identified as Pawan Kumar Sharma, 43, owner of Unique Fertility Centre in Delhi. On Friday, he was produced before the court, which remanded him in police custody till August 28.

According to crime branch officials, Sharma’s name surfaced during the investigation. Since Sharma was into the fertility business, he was constantly getting demands for children. Acting as a middleman, Sharma gave two boys to different couples in Delhi.

Delhi crime branch has already arrested Neha Gupta, 24, a Delhi resident, for selling two boys to her relatives. The babies were given to Abhinav Agrawal and Rahul Gupta.

The police have rescued the two kids from them. According to the police, Agrawal has a 17-year-old daughter, and wanted a son. Neha sold him a 15-day-old male child for Rs 2 lakh. Rahul Gupta's wife was unable to conceive so he contacted Neha and bought a 14-day-old boy for Rs 3.5 lakh.

Visakhapatnam: The recent child kidnapping racket (https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/racket) bust in Visakhapatnam

city has revealed that the nine-member gang (https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/gang) kidnapped children

(http://www.speakingtree.in/topics/people/children) not for ransom, but instead to earn money by selling the children to

childless couples.

Investigations into the racket have revealed that the gang had kidnapped four children in the city since 2016 and had sold them

MADURAI: The Madurai bench of the Madras high court has handed over the custody of a child to its minor mother after

cancelling its surrender to the child welfare committee which had subsequently declared that it was legally free for adoption.

A division bench of justices S Vimala (https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Vimala) and T Krishnavalli

(https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Krishnavalli) passed the order after it heard two cases filed by M Meena

(https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/M-Meena), mother of the girl, and Paramasivam

In one case, the accused women had promised a victim to make arrangements for meeting her son whenever she wished, the police officer said.

MUMBAI: Police Monday claimed to have busted a baby-selling racket in Mumbai with the arrest of five persons, including four women, who were allegedly involved in selling children for Rs 2 lakh to Rs 4 lakh each under the garb of adoption.

The Crime Branch of the city police busted the thriving racket late last week, an officer said. Acting on specific information, Unit 6 of the Crime Branch raided a house at Sathe Nagar in Mankhurd and picked up a woman for questioning, said Akbar Pathan, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Detection-1).

On information provided by her, the police detained two more women from the same area who were allegedly involved in the baby-selling ring, he said.

The role of another woman came to light later, he said. Accordingly to the police, these women would approach new mothers from economically weaker sections and offer to facilitate "adoption" of their newborn babies for a price that ranged from Rs 2 lakh to Rs 4 lakh each child, he said.

Niklaus Samuel Gugger, who was adopted by a Swiss couple, visited Thalassery – a place he calls his hometown.

In 1970, when Anasuya gave birth to a baby boy in India, she told the nurse and the lady doctor who attended her not to tell her son about her, and ask him never to come in search of her. Forty nine years later, Niklaus Samuel Gugger, now an MP in Switzerland visiting Thalassery in Kerala – a place he calls his hometown – is happy he honoured his unknown mother’s wish.

“The lady doctor has passed away and the other woman is 84 years old. I respect my mother’s wish. She trusted the missionary hospital (where I was born) to find the best place for me. And they did,” Nik says on a phone call from Kochi. He has just reached Kochi from Thalassery. Before that he was in Thiruvananthapuram, where he was hosted for lunch by Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. Nik had hosted the CM when he visited Switzerland earlier.

Nik is on a holiday with his family, and Kerala is very dear to him. After leaving India as a four-year-old to move to Switzerland, he has come back to the country at least 10 times, he reckons.

“It is because of my parents – the Swiss couple that adopted me, Fritz and Elizabeth. They said we should never lose our roots,” Nik says. Fritz also made sure Nik remembers all of his childhood. With a Super 8 camera, he made movies of little Nik running around in Thalassery and at the Hermann Gundert Foundation where he lived for four years.

Welfare department officials found that every month, 'one or two babies abandoned mostly by unwed mothers'

bandoned infants are being found, dead or alive, with alarming regularity in the Jharkhand capital and child protection officials don’t seem to know how to stem the disturbing pattern.

Between June and December this year, 10 newborns were reportedly found along roads, in garbage vats or in drains and activists believe this is only a conservative estimate. While abandoning the girl child is quite common in the state, many of the infants are boys and hence, perhaps born out of wedlock.

The latest rescue took place on Saturday when members of social outfit Rebels Club heard cries of a baby at Idris Colony in Kantatoli under Lower Bazaar thana.

“It must have been around 7pm. We traced the cries to a gunny bag near an apartment. Inside it was a baby boy, barely hours old. He hadn’t even been cleaned properly. We quickly arranged for clothes to protect him from the cold and informed police,” said Arzoo Khan, a member of the club who runs a garage in the area.

Born in Udupi, Gugger was abandoned by his biological parents at Basel mission hospital and was taken to Thalassery, where he lived till he was four years old.

THALASSERY, KERALA: It was a trip down memory lane for 49-year-old Niklaus Samuel Gugger, an Indian origin member of the Swiss Parliament, who was in the port town of Thalassery, where he spent his early years.

Gugger today also visited the campus of Nettur Technical Training Foundation (NTTF) at Illikunnu where his adopted father was a teacher.

Dressed in the traditional Kerala attire of "mundu" (dhoti), the young MP, who was accorded a civic reception on Tuesday, said he was happy to be back in his "home town" where he had grown up till he was four years old.

Gugger was adopted by a German couple, who later shifted to Switzerland.