The AIIMS baby saga has blown the lid off a massive sex racket across north India, police said on Thursday. The claim comes just two days after a driver and a tailor – one of them a pimp’s husband – were arrested.
Driver Rana Kumar Gupta alias Suraj (26), a resident of Badarpur in south Delhi, and Rahul alias Salauddin (24), a tailor from Mohammadpur village in south Delhi, were sent to judicial custody on Thursday.
Additional commissioner of police (southeast) Ajay Chaudhry said the duo, along with Aarti – Rana’s second wife, had made a fortune after pushing the 14-year-old teenager who had admitted the two-year-old toddler to the AIIMS Trauma Center on January 18 into sex trade.
“All three were involved in a prostitution racket for a long time and used to collect money from clients on the victims’ behalf,” Chaudhry said. The accused have told the police about other rackets, too. “Their network is spread across several cities. We have several more suspects who have been identified but are on the run,” he said.
The rescue of another girl, an 11-year-old from Ranchi – who was sold by her father to a pimp in Delhi along with her brother for Rs 1,000 each – might offer more insights into the human trafficking gang. The girl has told an NGO that her father was an alcoholic and had sold her off to a woman, who claimed she would take proper care of the minors in the capital. However, once here, the girl was forced into a job as a maid at a house in Rohini. “Some of the names she has mentioned are also on our list of suspects. We are trying to connect the dots,” said an investigating officer.
In the AIIMS baby case, eight persons have been arrested so far. One of the accused on the run, a woman named Saroj, allegedly lured the toddler’s biological mother, Munni, into remarriage with the promise of a better future and was responsible for the disappearance of her three children, including the AIIMS toddler. Munni, brought to Delhi on Sunday from Jhunjhunu district in Rajasthan, has told the police that she was not allowed to keep her children after the remarriage. She has since been reunited with her other daughter but her son is still missing.
Sources say Saroj seems to have acted as the Delhi link for the entire trafficking gang.
—SOurce:TOI