Hyderabad: The Gopalapuram police have transferred the Universal Srushti Fertility Centre child-trafficking and surrogacy case to the Special Investigation Team (SIT) of CCS, Hyderabad, for further investigation. So far, 25 accused, including five doctors, have been arrested in nine cases registered at the Gopalapuram police station for running the inter-state racket. The prime accused, Dr Athaluri Namratha, along with seven others, was arrested on July 27 based on an FIR registered at the police station on July 25. A Hyderabad couple complained that the Universal Srushti Fertility Centre, run by Dr Namratha, duped them of over 30 lakh in the name of a surrogacy procedure by palming off another couple’s child as theirs.After the arrest, seven other couples approached the police, and seven more cases were registered under relevant sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and the Surrogacy (Regulation) Act. The ninth case against Dr Namratha was registered on the complaint of a 90-year-old gynaecologist, Suri Srimathi, whose name was illegally used on the letterhead of Universal Srushti Fertility Centre by Dr Namratha and her associates, allegedly to operate their illegal business.The victim couples alleged that when they approached the fertility centre for IVF treatment, Dr Namratha convinced them to go for surrogacy and charged over 30 lakh for guaranteed babies. The victims were never told who the surrogate mothers were. One couple was told that their surrogate child died at birth, and the DNA of two couples did not match with the babies handed over to them by the accused.North Zone DCP Rashmi S Perumal said Dr Namratha built a network of clinics in Secunderabad, Kondapur, Visakhapatnam, Vijayawada, Nellore, Rajahmundry, Bhubaneswar, and Kolkata. According to the Gopalapuram police, the modus operandi was to lure couples seeking fertility help with conventional IVF and, once emotionally invested, persuade them to opt for hassle-free surrogacy with assurances that all legal paperwork would be handled in-house.“Agents would convince financially desperate women to sell their babies, offering them 3.5 lakh for a girl and 4.5 lakh for a boy. They used to charge Rs 30-40 lakh from victims. The accused also fabricated DNA and medical reports to pass the infants off as the clients’ own by sending the biological mother’s DNA for the test,” the DCP said.Among the accused are Dr Namratha, owner of Universal Srushti Fertility Centre; her son PSS Jayanth Krishna; Nargula Sadanandam, an anaesthesiologist working at Gandhi Hospital; Arimlli Vidyullatha, a paediatrician from Visakhapatnam; Pulumuru Usha Devi, a gynaecologist from Visakhapatnam; Vasupalli Ravi, an anaesthesiologist from Visakhapatnam; embryologists Gollamandala Chenna Rao and Bingi Ramya; Visakhapatnam branch manager Chitikireddi Kalyani; M Pavan Mohan Krishna, supervisor-cum-accountant at the Secunderabad branch; G Surekha, nurse at the Secunderabad branch; agents D Santoshi, M Nandini, Harsha Roy, Mohammed Asha Begum, Nayan Das, Shahina, K Ratnam, K Meenakshi, B Saroja, J Vijay Kumar and K Yamuna; and three parents who willingly agreed to the illegal sale of their children.Police seized about 50 files of couples from the offices of the fertility centre, and are verifying these to identify if there are more victims. Police have already written to banks to freeze the accounts of the accused. “Namratha was previously involved in 15 criminal cases in Hyderabad (Gopalapuram), Visakhapatnam, Vijayawada, and Guntur. Some of those cases were compromised, and others are under trial. We have invoked provisions of Organised Crime available in the BNS against the accused. The investigation will be handled by the SIT from now on,” the DCP said.
