Fake adoption ring: Four stolen newborn babies ‘recovered’, police say

Children left with current caretakers due to lack of facilities at police station.

ISLAMABAD:

The police on Thursday claimed to have tracked down and ‘recovered’ four newborn babies who were stolen from hospitals and sold to different people. The recoveries were made during raids in different areas of the capital and neighbouring Rawalpindi.

The babies, all of whom appeared to be two-to-three months old, have temporarily been left with the people from whom they were recovered as the police stations lack the facilities to care for the children, said Ramna SHO Shaukat Thabal.

The police have taken all details of the people with which the children presently are and the decision was taken after receiving the consent of senior officials, the SHO said. He added that the children were not given to a welfare organisation or sent to a shelter as the babies have become familiar with their present surroundings.

After completing legal formalities, Thabal said, the investigation officer has gone to Peshawar to collect the three women, said to be lady health workers, to Islamabad. The women were arrested based on evidence provided by the alleged ring leaders and were arrested from Peshawar and Mardan for their alleged involvement in the theft and sale of newborns.

In the next stage, Thabal said the police would put all efforts into finding the children’s real parents. DNA tests would be conducted and custody will be given through proper legal procedures, he clarified.

On a query, he said that the people who had bought the children would be presented in court as witnesses against the suspects.

Earlier on Thursday, a court sent the primary suspects — Tahira Gul, who is president of the NGO Madad Welfare Organisation, and her son, Shahzad Ali Zeb — to jail after the expiry of earlier remand.

Previously, the police said that a resident of Lahore, Asif Qureshi, came to know that a Facebook page “Adopt a Baby” was being used as a front for selling children and lodged a case with the Ramna police station against the suspects for stealing babies from hospitals and selling them.

Qureshi had contacted Zeb and gotten an eight-day-old boy for Rs300,000, said the police.

During the initial interrogation, the police said that the suspects confessed to stealing babies from various hospitals in Islamabad, Rawalpindi and Peshawar and later selling them. The suspects said they had formed the NGO and that the stolen newborns were being supplied by their partners, said the police.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 13^th, 2015.