Two newborns, one who was 15 days old and the other who was just two days old, were saved after the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) busted a syndicate of child traffickers on Friday night. Seven people were detained by the agency for their involvement in the sale of newborns to childless couples via Facebook and WhatsApp advertisements.

COMMERCIAL BREAK
SCROLL TO CONTINUE READING

Under the operation, CBI conducted searches at seven locations across Delhi and Haryana. 

In today's DNA, Zee News anchor Ram Mohan Sharma analysed the 'Modus Operandi' of the child traffic racket in the national capital.

The CBI conducted raids in several locations in Delhi and Haryana on Friday night in response to a tip. Three newborns were rescued and seven people were taken into custody from a house in Delhi's Keshavpuram neighbourhood. Two boys, one and a half days and fifteen days old, respectively, and a baby girl, approximately one-month-old, are among them. These babies were either taken from various locations or obtained for sale, according to CBI authorities, who also said that the buyers and the woman who helped with the transactions were among the people arrested.

The accused were presented in court, and seven of the accused were remanded to the custody of the CBI.  The masterminds of this illegal network are Indu and Neeraj, according to the agency. According to reports, this network obtained infants from hospitalised parents or surrogate mothers and then used Facebook and WhatsApp to find possible adoptive parents. After that, they would forge adoption paperwork to make it easier to sell these kids.

According to the CBI, this group sold infants for between Rs 4 and Rs 6 lakh on the illicit market, treating them like commodities. According to sources, this group has probably trafficked ten or so infants in the last month. Furthermore, the network's activities extend beyond the Delhi NCR area, involving staff members from other prestigious hospitals in different states. More shockingly, the mastermind of this gang has been identified as a government official, purportedly an Assistant Labour Commissioner.

The CBI notes that it is still conducting its probe into this child trafficking network and anticipates learning further information. It is expected that other people connected to different hospitals would be taken into custody, as several people, including a hospital ward boy, have already been arrested. It's unclear how far this syndicate has spread, but more arrests are probably on the way.