Mumbai: Police in Mumbai have arrested a gang of six people accused of stealing babies or convincing single women to sell their children in the latest bust in a series of baby trafficking rackets.
A police spokesman said the group, which included five women, sold the infants to childless couples in various states across India.
The arrests followed the rescue of five children - four boys and one girl - aged between four months and one year in the states of Goa, Gujarat and Karnataka, and came less than a month after a similar trafficking racket was busted in West Bengal.
Officers are now investigating if the couples that purchased the babies, for between Rs200,000 to Rs400,000, were aware that the children had been kidnapped or bought from their biological parents.
"The gang was operating for the last two to three years. We are still investigating the number of children they may have kidnapped and sold," senior police inspector Naresh Kasale said.
"We suspect more people are involved in the racket."
The police spokesman said one child has been reunited with its biological parent but the others were at a rescue home.
Local media reported that police were looking into whether the group was linked to cases of kidnapping in hospitals. Kasale said police first uncovered the racket in early December while investigating the case of a missing child in Sathe Nagar slum in Mankhurd, eastern Mumbai.
They found a woman from that slum was also missing and tracked her by her mobile phone to Goa where she was detained. She told police she had sold the child and gave them details of the racket.
