Mumbai: The police on Wednesday arrested two women and booked three others for allegedly selling an infant boy. Three of them are members of a gang that sells children and the other two are the parents of the child. The gang offers money to poor couples in exchange for their children and sells the babies at a higher price, said a police officer.
According to the police, the complainant, Mayuri Vannam, and her husband, Lakshminarayan Vannam, along with their aide, Binu Verghese, came to know about a person named Sameer, also known as Nabeel Shaikh, who allegedly sold children. In May, they met him at Lotus Junction in Shivaji Nagar and told him they wanted a child. They told the police about the gang, who laid a trap to expose the illegal business, the officer said.
Sameer told them that a woman was to deliver soon and quoted ₹4 lakh for the baby, he added. “He demanded ₹50,000 as an advance payment. But settled at ₹10,000 after negotiations. On August 6, Sameer called the couple and told them that the woman delivered a baby boy, demanding ₹5.5 lakhs,” the officer said.
Sameer told the complainant that two women would come to Lotus Junction with the child, where the police were also present to arrest the women and rescue the child.
“Two women, identified as Nazima Aslam Shaikh alias Nasreen and Fatima Shaikh, arrived with the child and also showed them the boy’s documents that had his birth details. He was born on August 1 in S N hospital, Shivaji Nagar, to Sumaya Khan and Irfan Khan,” the officer said.
The police arrested both women from the spot and registered a case against both of them along with Sameer and the parents of the child under section 143 (for trafficking of a person) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and sections 81 (sale and procurement of children) and 87 (abetment of offenses) of The Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act. The police said Nasreen had earlier been booked by the Govandi police for similar offences.