Delhi police crack child kidnapping case involving missing infant, mysterious woman, and suspicious auto ride to Badarpur
The railway unit of Delhi Police has busted a child-trafficking gang with the arrest of four traffickers and rescued two children, including an infant, officials said on Monday.
According to the police, with their arrest, the team has solved three cases spanning from 2023 to 2025, also revealing that the gang was supplying trafficked children to childless couples under the pretext of adoption.
“The investigation began after a case was reported at the New Delhi Railway Station on October 17, 2024. A woman lodged a complaint stating that her two-and-a-half-year-old son had been kidnapped while she was asleep in the station’s main hall,” Deputy Commissioner of Police (Railway) KPS Malhotra sai
“While investigating the matter, the police teams also got to know that on July 31, another woman’s three-year-old son was kidnapped from the ticket counter hall at the railway station. CCTV analysis in that case also showed the same woman abducting the child and escaping in an auto-rickshaw to the same location,” said the DCP.
On January 21, another kidnapping was reported at New Delhi Railway Station when a woman’s four-month-old infant was abducted from the Food Court Waiting Hall. With three similar cases under scrutiny, the police formed a team
“We launched a massive rescue operation and multiple teams examined footage from 700 CCTV cameras, mapping the suspect’s movements with phone tracking data. The breakthrough came when the suspect was spotted boarding an auto-rickshaw from the railway station’s main gate,” he added.
The vehicle’s registration number was tracked and an inquiry was conducted in Badarpur. The team eventually traced the suspect couple to Faridabad after raids and four people were held.
The DCP said that the team apprehended a woman and her husband who were responsible for kidnapping infants from the railway station after reconnaissance. The woman’s husband Suraj used to facilitate transactions between traffickers and buyers.
Another woman, a clerk for an advocate, would prepare forged adoption documents to make trafficking appear legitimate.
“The team later arrested a self-proclaimed doctor, who is 10th passed, she misrepresented trafficked infants as abandoned children to childless couples. They were working in a very planned manner that exploited legal loopholes and medical misrepresentation to sell the kidnapped infants,” he said.
Sharing modus operandi, police said that the traffickers targeted infants from crowded public places like railway stations.
The prime suspect discreetly kidnapped children and used pre-planned escape routes to avoid suspicion. Later another woman created fake adoption papers, misleading prospective adoptive parents.
Suraj managed financial transactions and acted as an intermediary between kidnappers and buyers. The gang used coded language and frequently changed phone numbers to evade arrest.
The self-proclaimed doctor falsely labelled trafficked children as abandoned or illegitimate. She used hospital contacts to introduce trafficked children to couples seeking adoption. The infants were later sold to unsuspecting childless couples who believed they were undergoing legal adoption. Fake adoption papers, medical records, and affidavits were created to ensure transactions appeared legitimate.
“During the entire operation, teams recovered two kidnapped children. The child kidnapped in October 2024 was found in Loni, Ghaziabad, while the infant abducted in January 2025 was rescued from Paharganj in Delhi. Both children had been placed with couples who were either childless or seeking a male child. They have now been moved to the Children Welfare Centre for protection and rehabilitation,” said the DCP.
