The City Crime Branch is looking into a significant case of human trafficking in which small children, many of whom belonged to homeless parents, were abducted and sold to couples. Following the arrest of two suspects and the rescue of a baby aged three months from the Navjivan Express by the Nagpur Railway Police, a multi-state trafficking ring operating throughout Maharashtra and Rajasthan was discovered. The child was to be sold to a couple in Vijayawada.
The three-month-old infant boy was given to the two identified as Chandrakant Patel from Malad and Draupadi Meshram from Nagpur by a stranger outside the Ahmedabad Railway station. The Crime Branch took over the investigation and is now questioning Patel and Meshram.
Two more people who allegedly confessed to being involved in human trafficking have been detained. Although the two people who were detained appear to have functioned as carriers for snatching children from the city and other states, a crime branch official claimed that investigators are still looking into the issue. Then, through gangs in their separate cities, they sold the kids to couples.
Vishwa Patel, 12, of Vejalpur, who went missing on January 12, 2012, remains an unsolved case. The Crime Branch is now re-investigating the April 2016 kidnapping of a 4-month-old infant girl from a walkway near Natkamal Flat in Maninagar as a result of the current case.
A police official said, “Several other toddlers were kidnapped from Gomtipur and Kalupur Railway station. We suspect all these cases are linked and are in touch with Maharashtra and Rajasthan police to nab the kingpins.”
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