NEW DELHI: Police in the Indian capital said on Wednesday they have broken up an illegal adoption racket in which newborn babies were stolen from hospitals and sold to couples.

Police have arrested three members of a group operating a fake charity in New Delhi that allegedly sold two dozen babies and toddlers to couples for up to 550,000 rupees ($8,600) each.

“The children were either stolen at birth, (or later) kidnapped or bought from poor parents,” Dependra Pathak, joint commissioner for southwest Delhi, said.

“It was a sophisticated racket and so far they have confessed to selling 24 babies,” Pathak said. Two children were rescued at the fake charity’s offices during a raid on Monday following a sting operation in which undercover officers posed as a couple seeking to adopt, he said.

The three arrested have been remanded into police custody for further questioning.

Delhi police are also seeking assistance from other states from where the babies and children were apparently trafficked by agents, in the hope of reuniting some with their birth parents. Kidnapping and trafficking children in India has long been a major problem, with many sold to unscrupulous employers for use as cheap labour.

The racket in Delhi involved prospective adoptive mothers being admitted to private clinics where they were given a false record of having delivered a baby as well as a birth certificate for their “newborns”, Pathak said.

Published in Dawn, June 11th, 2015

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