Mumbai: Four-women gang selling baby boys busted

MUMBAI: Busting a gang linked to a child trafficking case unearthed in 2017, the city crime branch has arrested a private

hospital coordinator-cum owner of an IVF consultancy firm along with three others for selling baby

(https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/selling-baby) boys of poor couples for as high as Rs 5 lakh. Another woman accused

is a security guard at a government hospital.

The crime branch also rescued two three-month-old boys sold to two couples in Kalyan and identified two more boys illegally

sold by the gang. The rescued babies have been kept under observation at Bal Anand World Children Welfare Trust at

Chembur.

All the four arrested are connected to hospitals and surrogacy, an officer said pointing out that while Bhagashree Koli (26)

works as coordinator in two private hospitals-one in Mumbai and another in Kalyan- and runs a IVF consultancy service-Little

Step in Kurla West, Asha Lalita Joseph (35) works in a private hospital in Kalyan and is into test tube baby and surrogacy, Savita

Mangesh Sawant alias Salunkhe (30) works as security guard at Shatabdi hospital in Govandi and Sunanda Bhike Masane (30)

acts as a facilitator between the gang and the clients.

Investigators suspect this to be part of a bigger racket because two of the accused have links with Julia Fernandes and Huma

Dalvi, arrested by Wadala TT police in 2017 in similar child trafficking case.

Explaining the modus operandi, an officer said the gang would identify poor couples who had just given birth to a boy in

government hospital and would lure them to sell their baby for monetary consideration. "To mislead them, the gang also forged

stamp papers to look as if it was a genuine adoption. The biological parents were also told that they would be provided access

to their child every month and promised their wards a better future,'' said Akbar Pathan deputy commissioner of police (Crime).

The gang was busted after the crime branch got a tip-off about child trafficking at the hospital, and visited a poor couple who

had become parents recently. On finding the infant missing from home, when the investigators asked the couple, they learnt

about the adoption.

Police have also arrested two persons who purchased these infants: Amar Vilas Desai, a taxi driver who paid Rs 3.8 lakh to the

gang for a boy; and homemaker Bhagyashree Vinod Kadam (35) who bought another baby for Rs 2.5 lakh.

Police said that while they have identified one parent and are looking for another baby's parents. "We have arrested them for

child trafficking and also under the Juvenile Justice Act. The accused were produced before the court and remanded in

custody. As of now we have identified two more babies sold and our teams are looking for them," said senior inspector Aburao

Sonawane.

Savita Sawant who is working as security guard at Shatabdi hospital was arrested in 2016 in a similar child kidnapping case and

was subsequently granted bail. The case is pending trial in court, said investigating officer Chandrakant Dalvi. A police officer

said they would also probe how Savita who has a criminal background was appointed as a guard.