Five women held for child trafficking racket in north Delhi

Delhi Police have arrested five women for running a child trafficking racket in north Delhi. The gang allegedly scouted government hospitals for vulnerable expectant mothers, socially profiling them and manipulating them into giving away their newborns. The racket had been active for nearly three years, and police have found at least three previous cases of infant trafficking.

The women also targeted financially distressed women and lured them into surrogacy arrangements through IVF, taking custody of the babies after delivery to sell them. Police arrested the five during a decoy operation near Hanuman Mandir at Yamuna Bazar in Kashmere Gate. Officers posed as buyers and agreed to pay Rs 6.5 lakh for a newborn. After paying Rs 20,000 as token money, they were shown a four-to-five-day-old infant, and the team arrested the accused and recovered the cash.

The accused are Isha, Harjeet Kaur, Shabnam, Priya and Simran. Police said they procured the newborn from a woman in Ghaziabad for Rs 4.1 lakh. Authorities are now trying to identify the mother and trace government hospital workers and IVF centres that allegedly helped the gang.