Police will now turn to the biological mother of a ten-day-old baby to solve the mystery of whether it was actually adopted or trafficked to a couple in Mumbai.
On April 20, Tardeo police arrested the director of a Nanded-based adoption agency on charges of child trafficking and illegally running the centre. Sources said that the director, Satyashree Gutte, is being questioned about the biological mother of the child. “Ms Gutte informed us that the baby had been brought to the adoption agency by an unwed mother, who did not want to care for the child. But she hasn’t been able to provide any proof for this,” said an officer of Tardeo police station.
The police said that to verify Ms Gutte’s claim, they have started a hunt for the mother. “In addition to going through birth records of local hospitals, we are also scanning through documents of the adoption agency to check for records of the child. While doing this, we are also looking for records of other children to check if there are any more cases like this,” said the officer.
The police started investigating the case after commissioner of police, Datta Padsalgikar, received an anonymous letter stating that a couple staying in Tardeo had bought a baby from an adoption agency based in Nanded. When the social service branch of Mumbai police investigated the case, it found that parents Manvi Pawar and Mahesh Pawar, could not produce any valid proof or documents to support their claim of adoption, now 18 months old. Investigation revealed that the parents had allegedly paid over 1 lakh to Ms Gutte to get the baby, a claim that was denied by her.
Sources revealed that they would be contacting the biological mother discreetly to make enquiries.
