Photos of children (masked to protect privacy) and seized mobile phones being displayed by the Rachakonda Police after nabbing an inter-state child trafficking gang.
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
A gang of eleven individuals, including “customers”, were arrested in connection with an inter-State child trafficking racket following a police operation led by the Malkajgiri Special Operations Team (SOT) in collaboration with Chaitanyapuri police.
The new racket unearthed on Tuesday comes shortly after a similar racket was busted in May last year.
During the operation, the police rescued four infants—two baby girls and two baby boys—who had been illegally procured and sold to families in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. The police also seized eleven mobile phones and ₹5,000 in cash.
The accused were identified as Kola Krishnaveni (26), Battu Deepthi (35), Goutham Savithri Devi (27), Battu Sravan Kumar ( 38), Amgoth Sharada (38), Buddihi Sampath Kumar (40).
A couple from from Vijayawada in Andhra Pradesh, another couple from Saidabad, and a man from Mahabubabad were also arrested for illegal adoptions.
Investigation revealed that prime accused Krishnaveni came in touch with one Vandana, a resident of Ahmedabad via social media, who supplied infants for a price ranging from ₹1.5 to ₹2.5 lakh each. Krishnaveni, in turn, worked alongside accomplices such as Deepthi and Sampath to transport the infants to Hyderabad.
The network involved mediators, including Sharada, who facilitated the sale of infants to prospective buyers through agents such as Sunitha and Savitri. The children were sold for sums ranging from ₹2.7 to ₹4.8 lakh, with profits shared among the intermediaries.
“Babies as young as a four days old were sold in this network, however how they were sourced is yet to be determined. A team of officials will be sent to Ahmedabad to nab the key supplier. Meanwhile, efforts are underway to trace the transactions to identify others involved in the racket,” Rachakonda Commissioner G. Sudheer Babu said.
The first deal was marked on January 28, 2025 in which a baby girl was sold to couple in Vijayawada for ₹2.7 lakh. The profit of ₹50,000 was shared between Krishnaveni and Deepthi in this case. The other three deals were on February 4, 12 and 25 respectively.
The case came to light after the police conducted a raid at the Chaitanyapuri bus stop in the early hours of February 25 following a tip-off. Krishnaveni, Savitri, and Sampath were arrested just as they attempted to hand over an infant boy. Their subsequent interrogation led to the unravelling of the entire network.
The police revealed that Krishnaveni, a resident of Quthbullapur in Medchal-Malkajgiri district, was deeply involved in an illegal infant trafficking racket. She was arrested by the Gopalapuram police in 2024 when she was about to sell a baby boy, sourced through Manoj from Delhi, to a customer in Hyderabad.
A graduate in BSc Biochemistry, she was married to one Ravi Kumar from Vikarabad, but he divorced her in 2019 due to her inability to conceive. She joined a private company as a ‘medical representative’ in 2019 before stepping into the world of crime.
The police warned that citizens seeking to adopt children should follow the legal procedures and refrain from engaging with illegal agents.
The arrested individuals are now facing charges under the Juvenile Justice Act, and further investigations are ongoing. These individuals will be taken into police custody and questioned further, the official concluded.
Published – February 25, 2025 05:00 pm IST
