A woman and three others were arrested for allegedly trying to sell her one-month-old child for ₹2 lakhs, police said.
To nab the suspects and recover the baby safely, two police personnel posed as decoy customers and struck a deal of ₹2 lakh to purchase the baby.
The accused have been identified as Praveen Khatoon (45), Santosh (35), Madhu Singh (30) and their associate Satish (35), they said.
A resident of Uttam Nagar, Singh wanted to sell her baby for cash through the three alleged brokers, police said.
They claimed to have saved the girl child from becoming a victim of immoral trafficking.
On Saturday, the police team at Sabzi Mandi in North Delhi received information about the involvement of Khatoon in selling minor children. Acting on the tip-off, a raiding team was formed comprising Sub-Inspector Lalit Kumar and other police personnel.
According to police, Constable Rakesh and woman Constable Anju, posed themselves as fake couple and approached the suspects to purchase a child. After following due procedure, the informer introduced Khatoon and her associate Satish.
Khatoon and Satish told Constable Rakesh that a woman, Santosh, who resides at Mangolpuri would arrange a minor child.
After that the police personnel who posed as decoy customers reached Manoglpuri where they met Santosh who then called Singh at the spot who came with her one-month child at her house, police said.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (North) Sagar Singh Kalsi said that after finalizing the deal, on the pretext of full payment, Constables Rakesh and Anju brought all the four alleged along with minor girl child at Barfkhana, Subzi Mandi here where Constable Rakesh paid ₹50,000 cash to Khatoon.
“Khatoon kept ₹10,000 as her share and then handed over ₹30,000 to Singh, ₹4,000 to Satish, ₹6,000 to Santosh,” he said.
“After receiving the amount, accused Singh handed over the child to constable Anju, following which constable Rakesh alerted his staff who nabbed all the four accused and recovered the amount from their possession,” the DCP said.
A case was registered at Subzi Mandi police station.
“During interrogation, Khatoon and Santosh were operating the gang of selling and purchasing of minor child. They searched for people who intended to buy their children for money and made arrangement to sell them, and Madhu Singh wanted to sell her child for money,” Kalsi said.
Mobile phones of accused Khatoon and Satish were analysed and many photographs of children were found in their devices, police said, adding that all the antecedents of the accused are being verified.
