Prateek Tanmay
3 min readGhaziabadUpdated: Jun 27, 2026 12:32 PM IST
Even before she was born, her parents were already allegedly considering selling her — the buyers were based out of Andhra Pradesh. On seeing the newborn in May, however, the hearts of the parents — who work as labourers in Ghaziabad — melted. They said no to the people pursuing them, police told The Indian Express.
Eleven days later, a woman named Pooja, who was among the people pursuing the parents, allegedly kidnapped the infant from her house on May 26 and handed the baby over to another accused, identified as Manoj.
Earlier this month, the Tronica City Police rescued the infant, and arrested Pooja and Manoj, apart from 11 others, as they busted a human trafficking racket with the help of tip-off, local intelligence and CCTV footage, said officers.
The accused abducted the baby girl from Pooja Colony and were about to hand her over to three others.
The gang planned to take the child to Andhra Pradesh and sell her to a couple, identified as Raju and Deepti.
On Friday, the police arrested three more accused from the Tronica City of Ghaziabad, identified as Tarannum (29), Anil Lakda (33), and Karun (49).
The alleged syndicate, said officers, operated across Delhi-NCR and through their network, identified parents from weak financial backgrounds who were expecting a child. While the accused allegedly sold the newborns across the country, their buyers were mostly concentrated in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, according to officers.
Story continues below this ad
Accused Anil and Karun said that they had joined the gang through Tarannum and another syndicate member Pradeep.
They allegedly told the police that they would contact such families, lure them with money, and share information with other gang members through WhatsApp, their regular channel of communication. “Once a task was completed, they deleted the WhatsApp messages,” said police.
Apart from running a racket, they also used fake currency while dealing and making payments to the parents. “After the birth of a child, they mixed fake notes with a few genuine currency notes and handed the money to the parents of the abducted infant. By the time, the parents would find that the notes were counterfeit, the gang would have already fled with the baby,” an officer said, adding that since the parents had themselves accepted money in exchange for the child, they were afraid to lodge complaints against the gang.
Fake currency notes worth Rs 2,500 and four mobile phones have been recovered from the possession of the accused.
Story continues below this ad
Earlier this month, Delhi Police had also busted a similar racket that was operating out of a doctor’s clinic in Northwest Delhi’s Begumpur.
