Eleven people were arrested for allegedly kidnapping a 4-month-old girl and selling her for Rs 4.8 lakh to a Tamil Nadu-based civil engineer, an official said on Tuesday, adding that the infant has been rescued by two Mumbai police teams from Coimbatore in the southern state.
A probe began after a 50-year-old woman identified as Anwari Abdul Shaikh told VP Road police that an infant had been kidnapped by one Ibrahim Shaikh on January 3, after which a case was registered for kidnapping and trafficking of minor, he said.
"We first arrested Ibrahim Altaf Shaikh (32) based on human and technical intelligence, and then, based on his interrogation, raided areas in Sion, Dharavi, Malad Jogeshwari, Nagpada in Mumbai and Kalyan and Thane. This led to further arrests of two women and four men," he said.
"They told us the child had been sold for Rs 4.8 lakh to a person in Tamil Nadu. Two teams were sent there and a search operation was mounted in three districts for four days. Mumbai police succeeded in arresting one woman and four men from Selvanpatti in Coimbatore, all of whom were brought here," he added.
The child was sold to one Anand Kumar Nagarajan, a civil engineer living in Selvanpatti, and it has been revealed that accused Ibrahim Shaikh was in a live-in relationship with the infant's mother, the official informed.
"Ibrahim Shaikh claims he is the father of the child, so we will be conducting a DNA test. The infant's mother had gone for some work on December 1 and has not been traced as yet. The infant is in a secure place as per an order of the Child Welfare Committee," the official said.
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