Kamothe police arrested a 53-year-old doctor and three women including the mother for allegedly selling an infant at Rs 4 lakh. Police said that the mother of five children was facing financial problems as her husband had left her when she was three-month pregnant with her fifth baby.
The arrested doctor was identified as Dr. Pankaj Gopalrao Patil, a resident of Kamothe where he was also running his clinic.
Amrin Bano Badarbaksh is the mother of the baby girl and she had brought the baby to the doctor’s clinic along with two other women. The other two women were identified as Ruksar Nadin Shaikh and Rajni Pandurang Jadhav.
Police said that they had received information through a social worker that Dr Patil was selling a baby girl at Rs 4 lakh. They laid a trap and sent a woman cop and a social worker as a married couple as a customer to the clinic on Wednesday evening. When they discussed with the doctor for a baby, the doctor demanded Rs 4 lakh and asked to wait for half an hour for the baby. “In half an hour, three women in black cloth came with a baby girl. The doctor then asked for money,” said Smitha Jadhav, senior police inspector from Kamothe police.
The social worker gave him eight bundles of Rs 500 of which only 16 notes were original and the remaining were fake. After they gave the notes bundle, the woman gave the baby and left the clinic. The police team already waiting outside caught all the women and then the doctor.
Senior PI Jadhav said that Badarbaksh's husband had left her when she was three months pregnant for her fifth baby. “It seems that she was unable to run the family as there was no secure source of income,” said Jadhav.
Badarbaksh and Shaikh reside in the same building while another woman Jadhav was previously employed as a nurse at Dr. Patil’s clinic. “Shaikh used to donate her eggs for IVF and she was in touch with the nurse Jadhav,” said Sr PI Jadhav.
They have been arrested under sections 370 and 34 of IPC and sections 81 and 87 The Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act.
Senior Police Inspector Jadhav said that we are investigating whether Dr. Patil was involved in another baby sell racket or not.
