Infant Trafficking Gang Busted in UP, Nine-Month-Old Rescued, Nine Held

An inter-state infant trafficking racket allegedly involved in abducting babies from railway stations and bus stands by targeting vulnerable women has been busted in Raebareli district, police said on Wednesday. Nine people have been arrested and a nine-month-old child has been safely rescued .

According to police, the gang operated through deception and emotional manipulation , befriending women travelling alone with children, gaining their trust, and then abducting infants, who were allegedly later sold through a wider interstate network.

The case came to light after a woman originally from Tikamgarh in Madhya Pradesh , currently residing in Delhi, filed a complaint at Kotwali Nagar police station. She stated that on May 13, while travelling by train with her two children after leaving Delhi due to a domestic dispute, she met an unidentified man and woman who gradually gained her trust.

As the train approached Raebareli, the accused allegedly took custody of her nine-month-old child on the pretext of feeding and caring for him. After reaching Raebareli railway station, they escorted her outside and fled with the infant near a food outlet.

Following the complaint, police registered a case under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and launched a coordinated operation involving the SOG and surveillance teams. The child was traced and rescued near the railway colony area on May 20, and a car used in the crime was seized.

Those arrested have been identified as Ramkumar Das and Reshma (Bihar), Sumit Kumar (Rampur), Sanjay Kumar , Brahmpal Singh , Babita Saini , Archana Singh (Moradabad), Harish Chandra (Amroha), and Kiranjeet Kaur (Udham Singh Nagar, Uttarakhand).

Investigators said CCTV footage, technical surveillance, and human intelligence helped dismantle the network, which allegedly functioned as an organised crime group with roles spread across multiple states.

Police officials, as per the information available in the investigation, have not mentioned any previous cases or links involving Telangana or Andhra Pradesh . The probe is ongoing to trace possible wider interstate connections of the racket.