THE CRADLE RAIDERS OF TAMIL NADU

Police Suspect An Organised Network Behind Stealing Of Babies And Their Sale To Childless Couples In TN,Abroad

Coimbatore: There is racket that steals babies from the cradles at government primary health centres in backward districts,particularly Krishnagiri,of the state,the police firmly believe.

The stolen babies are being sold for up to Rs 1.5 lakh,the police say.

The Krishnagiri police had a week ago arrested 3 persons on charges of operating a child trafficking racket and rescued eight babies from them.The arrested include a pastor Alphonse Xavier,who runs a Christian prayer house in Padappai near Chennai,Lalitha,who runs an orphanage in the name of Vidya Annai Karangal,and also president of the Puducherry-based All India Human Rights Movement.

We are probing whether the

baby scheme was exploited for trafficking children, the Krishnagiri superintendent of police,AG Babu tells TOI.Three village health nurses in Kaveripattinam,a town in Krishnangiri,are being interrogated to ferret out details on the racket and their role,if any.

Of the eight children rescued from the arrested trio,three have been handed back to their biological parents.The whereabouts of other five babies are not known.Police suspect that since there are no claims for the babies,they would have been stolen from cradles at the government hospitals.

The

Baby Scheme was launched in Salem in 1992 by former chief minister J Jayalalithaa to curb the soaring female infanticide rate in the state.The scheme was later extended to Madurai,Theni,Dindigul and Dharmapuri.Couples and unwed mothers can leave their new-borns in the government cradles,which are placed at reception centres in district social welfare offices,district collectorates,government hospitals and primary health centres.These

babies would be taken care of in orphanages with financial aid from the government.Though,mostly,the stolen children reach childless couples,in Krishnagiri,a few of the abandoned baby boys have slipped into the hands of a child trafficking gang.The stealing-andselling racket was unearthed when a barely three-month-old baby boy went missing outside the Krishnagiri general hospital.As the baby was unwell,the childs mother,Ramakka,took him to the hospital on May 18.At the hospital,a woman befriended Ramakka and offered to hold the baby till she bought biscuits and medicines.But the woman,later identified as Dhanalakshmi by the police,fled with the child.When police caught Dhanalakshmi,she revealed that she had been hired by two Chennaibased social workers,Rani and Girija,to steal babies.The probe led to the alleged kingpin,pastor Alphonse,who operated a racket from Chennai.They had sold male babies for up to Rs 1.5 lakh and female babies for about Rs 70,000.We will now take pastor Alphonse into police custody to find out if they had kidnapped children from other parts of

too, the superintendent of police said.radha.venkatesan@timesgroup.com

The

baby scheme was first launched in Salem in 1992 by the erstwhile Jayalalithaa regime in a bid to curb the rampant female infanticide in the state.The scheme was later extended to Madurai,Theni,Dindigul and Dharmapuri Parents who do not want babies can abandon them in the government cradles.Babies born out of marriages and illicit relationships are also abandoned in the government cradles Cradles were placed at reception centres in district social welfare offices,district collectorates,government hospitals and primary health centres Children received at these centres are rehabilitated and handed over to licenced adoption agencies Number of babies abandoned in govt cradles from 1992 till February 2010 3,622

Source: Policy note of the TN Social Welfare department