India: Trafficking

“In a case that points towards the possible presence of an illegal child adoption and child trafficking racket in the state, police have arrested a 48-year-old man from Kanhangad in Kasaragod along with three agents on charges of selling his two infant children for Rs 3.25 lakh with the help of a woman advocate, who was arrested in a similar case last year.

Hosdurg police on Friday night arrested Sulaiman P M, a resident of Kanhangad South, based on a tipoff. The three agents — Basheer M, Rasheed P and Moideen T K — were nabbed later. Police said the kids were sold in the name of adoption through a Mangalore-based advocate. She would be arrested soon and the whereabouts of the children would be known only then, they said.

Kanhangad DSP M Pradeepkumar said Sulaiman had 12 children from two wives and he had sold the young children of his second wife, aged one-and-a-half and six months, in April last year. He apparently got Rs 1.75 lakh for the elder girl child while the second one, a boy, fetched him Rs 1.5 lakh, from which commission was paid to the agents and the mediator.

“Since the mother of the kids was also apparently involved in the case, there was no complaint registered and it was quite accidentally that we came to know about it,” the DSP said.

Incidentally, the same woman advocate was arrested in July last year in another child trafficking case, in which a resident of Nellikunnu in Kasaragod was arrested on charges of selling his two infant sons for Rs 1.6 lakh. Since both the cases happened during the same period and the same mediator was involved in them, the possibility of a child trafficking and adoption racket operating in the state cannot be ruled out, police said.

All the arrested people were produced before the judicial first class magistrate court in Hosdurg, which sent them to Kasaragod district jail in judicial remand for two weeks. However, the police will seek their custody again as they have to be interrogated further.”

Father, three agents held for selling children[Times of India 3/25/14]

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