THANE: Six persons including the parents of a newborn girl have been arrested in Thane for allegedly trying to sell the infant for Rs 1.50 lakh, a police official said on Saturday.
Police had got a tip-off that a couple from Bhiwandi in the district was trying to sell off their newborn daughter, said senior inspector Anil Deshmukh of Crime Unit 1. The couple were apparently in dire need of money, he said.
Police officials, posing as interested buyers, contacted the middlemen involved in the matter and negotiated the price at Rs 1.5 lakh.
On Friday, a police team arrested the parents and four others from a spot near the Thane collector's office when they took money and handed over the child to a decoy customer, inspector Deshmukh said. The baby girl was born at a government hospital in Bhiwandi on December 4, he said.
She was sent to a child care center at Dombivli after the parents were arrested. A case under IPC section 370 (trafficking of persons) was registered at Rabodi police station here, the official said.
The accused were identified as the infant's father Vakil Shakil Ansari (37) who is a rickshaw driver, mother Mumtaz Ansari (29), alleged middlemen Zeenath Rashid Khan (22) and Vasim Isaque Shaikh (36); Kaynath Rizwan Khan (30) who is the girl's aunt and an 18-year-old youngster who is her cousin. Further probe was on.
