Namakkal: The alleged racket in buying and selling of babies centred around a retired Rasipuram-based government nursing assistant in Namakkal district, appears to be getting wider with the police arresting three more 'sub-brokers' suspected to be part of the 'baby sale' network going on for some years.
Following the arrest of 50-year-old Amudha aka Amudhavalli, who took voluntary retirement from state service, her husband Ravichandran, 54, and an ambulance driver from Kollimalai in the district, one Murugesan on Friday, the district police led by SP R.Arularasu, based on interrogations with them, arrested three more today, believed to be conduits in this alleged child trafficking racket.
The special team picked up 'sub-brokers' Parveen, Arulsamy and Hasina and are interrogating them in a secluded place, police said. The racket came to light as an audio clip of Amudha purportedly negotiating with a potential baby-buyer in Dharmapuri district went viral couple of days back, prompting the district health officials to start a probe and lodge an FIR with the Rasipuram All Women police. Amudha was allegedly even quoting the price in lakhs of rupees for different categories of babies, depending on their gender, health and physical appearance.
Interrogations revealed that Murugesan alone had helped to source more than eight children for Amudha to sell them to genuine childless couples. While Murugesan got friendly with women while transporting them for deliveries in government hospital, police suspect the duo "exploited the poverty" of mothers to part with one of their kids for a sum. They are believed doing this for three years now, said the SP, adding further investigations are on.
Sources also shared that of the three others arrested today, the two women were "egg donors" who frequented private fertility centres where childless couples were trying to have a baby through the IVF process. They thus came to know people there and at one stage sought to persuade the unsuccessful couples to "get a new born baby", the sources added. Sources said through the three persons arrested today, at least 12 children were bought and sold. In one case a notary public lawyer from Namakkal had allegedly helped in getting the 'child adoption papers'. The other dimension was to get birth certificates for some of these 'traded babies' from the Rasipuram municipal corporation. All these aspects and some more people allegedly involved as sub-brokers in the racket and a few lawyers will be probed.
