HYDERABAD: Three persons including a woman who indulged in selling off a four-month old baby girl on pretext of adopting her, were arrested by the Madannapet police on Monday here. Police also served notices to several hospital managements asking them not to entertain surrogacy and IVF methods in their hospitals. According to police, on October 31, one Sabila Begum, a housewife had lodged a complaint with police that one Shaik Khatoon approached her and her husband when she went in for delivery at Maternity Hospital, Petlaburj.
Sympathising with Begum’s poverty stricken family of four girls and a boy, Khatoon offered to adoption of her newborn female baby. Begum gave in to request on Khatoon’s insistance.
However, they later came to know that Khatoon sold the baby girl for `2 lakh in Visakhapatnam. Based on a complaint, police registered cases of cheating, section 80 and 81 of Juvenile Justice Act.
During the investigation, the police arrested three persons Vakapalli Gangadhar Reddy, an agent at Sai Kiran and OASIS Hospital, Banjara Hills, resident of Qutubullapur, Shaik Khatoon, wife of Saleem, resident of Dabeerpura, Shaik Yousuf. Two others- Sirisha and Ratna Kumari are absconding.
V Satyanarayana, DCP, South Zone, said Gangadhar played a role in case by giving contact details of Yousuf, father of baby girl, to couple Parvathi and Nageswara Rao. The couple contacted Yousuf and had discussions. Yousuf consented to sell his daughter for `2 lakh. After couple paid `1.70 lakh, Yousuf started demanding more amount. As the couple refused to pay, Yousuf made his wife to lodge a complaint with police.