Police in Ghaziabad have dismantled an alleged child trafficking network accused of abducting infants and selling them to couples unable to conceive, in exchange for sums running into several lakhs of rupees. Seven people, including two women, have been arrested in connection with the case, which came to light after the abduction of a four-month-old boy in the Tila Mod police station area.
Investigators have named Naushad as the alleged kingpin of the network, which they say operated across Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Bihar, identifying childless couples and arranging children for them for a price. The child at the centre of the case was rescued safely and reunited with his parents, but the interrogation that followed has opened a far wider and more disturbing line of inquiry into how many children may have passed through the racket.
From a Missing Infant to a Cross-State Network
The case began on August 9, when the four-month-old son of Muskan and Furqan, a couple living in a rented house near the Karan Gate outpost, went missing. As the family approached police, investigators grew suspicious that an organised network, rather than an isolated abduction, was behind the disappearance.
That suspicion hardened when Naushad and his wife Rukhsar allegedly called the boy’s parents nine times from different mobile numbers, assuring them the child was safe while pressuring them not to involve the police. Investigators say tracing those numbers initially proved difficult, since early leads pointed only to unrelated passers-by, but sustained technical investigation eventually connected the calls to the suspects.
That breakthrough led a police team to Shamli, where a raid in the Kandhla area resulted in the arrest of several accused. Questioning of those detained allowed investigators to trace and recover the missing infant, who police say was being prepared for sale to a couple in Shamli for ₹5 lakh. The seven people arrested have been identified as residents of Panipat, Muzaffarnagar, Muzaffarpur, Shamli and Kishanganj, spanning three states.
Interrogation Reveals an Alleged Pattern Stretching Back Years
What has alarmed investigators most is not the single rescued child but what surfaced during questioning of the alleged kingpin. Naushad reportedly told police that around one and a half years earlier, he had arranged to sell an unborn girl to a childless couple in Sonipat for ₹2.40 lakh, with the infant allegedly handed over roughly a fortnight after birth.
He further disclosed, according to police, that with help from co-accused Ainul and Abid, he had arranged deals involving three children belonging to his own younger brother, though those transactions had allegedly not yet been completed. Police are treating both disclosures with caution while attempting to verify the identities of those allegedly involved, but the claims have prompted a significant widening of the investigation’s scope.
Two suspects linked to the network, identified as Mousina and Sitara, remain absconding, and police are examining the phones, call records and financial transactions of those already arrested to map the racket’s full extent. Investigators are particularly focused on how children were identified and sourced, how prospective buyers were located, and how payments were structured and transferred.
A Pattern That Reflects a Wider National Problem
Cases like the one uncovered in Ghaziabad are not isolated within India’s broader child protection landscape. Government data has previously indicated that thousands of children go missing or are trafficked in India each year, for purposes ranging from illegal adoption to forced labour and sexual exploitation, with enforcement agencies repeatedly flagging weak coordination across state lines as a persistent obstacle to dismantling such networks.
The legal framework addressing such crimes is layered, spanning provisions under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita covering trafficking and sale of minors, the Juvenile Justice Act’s protections for children in need of care, and the POCSO Act where sexual exploitation is suspected. Yet prosecutors and child rights advocates have long noted that specialised courts and trained personnel remain thin relative to the scale of cases being reported, often slowing prosecutions even after successful rescues.
The Ghaziabad case underscores how such rackets frequently exploit the desperation of childless couples on one end and the vulnerability of impoverished families on the other, operating through informal networks that cross state boundaries and evade detection until a single abduction draws police attention. Investigators say the coming weeks will determine whether the seven arrests represent the full network or merely its most visible layer.”
