Raebareli (UP), May 21 (PTI) An inter-state gang allegedly involved in abducting and illegally selling infants by targeting vulnerable mothers at railway stations and bus stands has been unearthed in Uttar Pradesh’s Raebareli district, with police rescuing a nine-month-old child and arresting nine accused, officials said.
According to police, the gang operated through deception and emotional manipulation, with its members befriending women travelling alone with children before abducting infants and allegedly selling them through a wider network spread across multiple states.
The case surfaced after a woman originally from Tikamgarh in Madhya Pradesh, currently residing in Delhi, lodged a complaint at the Kotwali Nagar police station in Raebareli.
Police said the woman had left Delhi following a domestic dispute and was travelling by train with her two children on May 13 when she came in contact with an unidentified man and woman.
During the journey, the woman gradually gained the complainant’s confidence and, shortly before the train reached Raebareli, took custody of her nine-month-old child on the pretext of feeding and caring for him, police said.
After arriving at Raebareli railway station, the accused couple allegedly escorted the complainant outside the station towards a food outlet and fled with the infant, officials said.
Based on the complaint, police registered a case under relevant provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and formed multiple teams to trace the child and identify the accused.
During interrogation, investigators found that the accused were allegedly part of an organised inter-state network engaged in the illegal procurement and sale of infants.
Police said gang members specifically targeted women travelling alone with small children at crowded public places such as railway stations and bus stands. They would first establish contact, offer emotional support, gain the victim’s trust and then exploit an opportunity to take away the child.
After abducting the child, the accused would allegedly contact other members of the network and negotiate the sale of the infant to prospective buyers seeking children, police said, adding the money received from such transactions was distributed among the gang members.
Officials said that in the present case, the child was allegedly abducted by Ramkumar Das and his wife Reshma, after which arrangements were being made to hand over or sell the infant through other members of the network.
The arrested accused have been identified as Ramkumar Das and his wife Reshma, both residents of Araria district in Bihar; Sumit Kumar of Rampur; Sanjay Kumar, Brahmpal Singh, Babita Saini and Archana Singh of Moradabad; Harish Chandra of Amroha; and Kiranjeet Kaur of Udham Singh Nagar in Uttarakhand.
Police also recovered the abducted infant and seized a car allegedly used in the crime.
Officials said CCTV footage, surveillance inputs, railway station movement analysis, technical tracking and human intelligence were used to trace the accused and reconstruct the movement of the child.
Acting on specific inputs, a joint team of Kotwali Nagar police and the Special Operations Group (SOG)/Surveillance Team arrested the accused near the railway colony water tank area on May 20 and safely rescued the infant, police said.
During investigation, additional provisions related to organised crime were also invoked under the BNS, considering the involvement of multiple accused and the structured nature of the operation, officials added.
Police said the accused are being produced before a court for judicial remand and further investigation is underway to probe possible wider interstate links of the racket. PTI KIS DV DV
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