Gurugram: Alert cabbie stops trafficking of 2 babies

GURUGRAM: Umesh Lohia's passengers were in for a surprise when the cabbie they had hired to go to Alwar stepped on the accelerator and screeched to a halt at the DLF-3 police station.

Without wasting even a second, he rushed inside the police station and came out with a group of cops.

The alacrity of the cab driver from the city led to the arrest of three persons - two women and a man - and lifted the veil off a gang that stole newborns from hospitals around Delhi-NCR and sold them to childless couples across the country since 2014.

On Saturday, the three persons had stopped Lohia's cab near Dhaula Kuan and asked him for a lift to IFFCO Chowk. Lohia, who was anyway returning home to Nathupur in the city, agreed as the two women had a newborn each in their arms and it was drizzling.

Just a few minutes into the ride, the two women - who were seated in the back - asked Lohia if he could drop them to Alwar in Rajasthan. The cabbie agreed, saying it could cost them Rs 3,000. A little later, one of the women asked him to drop them back to Delhi from Alwar and take Rs 4,000 for the round trip. As they headed towards Alwar, the women asked him to stop at a chemist shop to buy feeding bottles and at a sweet outlet to purchase milk.

On the way, one of the women got a call on her phone and she informed the caller they would reach Alwar in a couple of hours. A few minutes later, her phone buzzed again. This time, she appeared to negotiate a deal. "She was telling the person on the other side that they would not take anything less than Rs 3 lakh. The deal did not materialise and they told me to drop them back to Delhi. I had a feeling that she was talking about the two infants in their arms," Lohia said.

Lohia, now suspicious, took a U-turn at Manesar, making an excuse. "I told them I needed to collect some stuff and stopped the cab near Moulsari metro station in DLF Phase 3," he said. Lohia went inside the market and watched them from a distance. "I was sure that something was amiss," he told TOI. He returned to his cab, kept them busy with casual conversation, and steered the vehicle towards the nearby DLF-3 police station.

After they admitted to having stolen the two infants - both girls, less than a month old -- a case was registered. The three were identified as Surinder Kaur (45), a resident of Ranjeet Nagar in Alwar, Neha (32) from Rohini in New Delhi and Harjinder Singh (32) from Alwar.

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