2 city docs among 6 held for child trafficking

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, July 15

In a major breakthrough, the Jalandhar Commissionerate Police have busted a child trafficking racket that was being run by some city doctors. Six persons, including two doctors, were nabbed by the city police in this connection late last night. All were arrested from a hotel located near PIMS hospital where a deal was on to sell a four-month-old child Navjot.

The accused doctors were identified as Vishan Bhanot (Bachelor of Ayurvedic Medicine and Surgery) of Urban Estate Phase 2 and Ramandeep Kaur (Bachelor of Electropathy Medicine & Surgery) of Patti Math Wali village in Nawanshahr, who runs City ART Services Private Limited on Cool Road where they deal in egg reproduction technology and sperm donation.

Other four accused are Harjinder Kaur, alias Pooja, of Sangat Singh Nagar, Seema, alias Seeta, of Bajir Bhullar village in Beas, Asha, alias Sheela, and her husband Brij Mohan, a resident of Madhuban Colony here, Jyoti of Nakodar and Reena of Dakoha.

Four-month-old child Navjot has also been recovered. Seema and Asha are yet to be nabbed. Harjinder and Seema are the egg donors.

Dr Bhanot from Jalandhar is said to be a joint secretary of the National Integrated Medical Association (NIMA). NIMA is the largest organisation representing institutionally qualified ISM graduates who have undergone a conjoint study of ayurveda/ unani and allopathic systems of medicine from the institutions recognised by CCIM (Central Council of Indian Medicine).

Asha and Brij are the maternal grandparents of the child Navjot, while Jyoti and Reena are the middleman managing deals in child trafficking. Reena is presently working at Jaswant Hospital here.

The racket was busted by the team including DCP Harjit Singh, ADCP AS Power, ACP Karanvir and inspector Navdeep Singh.

DCP Harjit, at a press conference, said the police had received information that Dr Bhanot and Dr Ramandeep had been running a child trafficking racket from their hospital and they were going to strike a deal to sell a child at a hotel. Accordingly, we sent a decoy customer to the hotel along with cops, and after finalizing the deal, they were nabbed red handed along with the four months old child, the DCP added.

ADCP Power said the entire deal was stuck between Rs 5-6 lakh, out of which Rs 2 lakh was to be given to the maternal grandparents, while the remaining was to be shared by the doctors and mediators. The duo wanted to sell the child as their daughter Jyoti had divorced her husband and now they were considering her child a hurdle in her (Jyoti’s) marriage, Power added.

Racket may bewell-entrenched

The child trafficking racket seems to be deep rooted and was in place for long. The DCP said, apart from this case, one more child, who had been sold, had been identified and now it was being inquired if the nabbed doctors were also part of the same racket. We suspect other doctors could also be running the child trafficking racket. Soon all blacksheep will be behind bars,” DCP Harjit said. He said the police were also checking if the doctors had the permission to run the hospital and whether their degrees were valid.