5, including 2 women, get 10 yrs jail in inter-state child trafficking case

Agra: A Hathras court has sentenced five persons, including two women, to 10 years rigorous imprisonment in a case of inter-state child trafficking where a four-year-old went missing in UP and was eventually located in Andhra Pradesh after extensive police search through MP, Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra. The court also imposed a fine of Rs 20,000 on each convict.The case dates back to May 2025, when Hathras police busted the gang involved in trafficking children to childless couples. The accused sourced details of such couples via fertility centres and offered them children for Rs 2-3 lakh.Hathras SP, Chiranjeev Nath Sinha, said the gang primarily targeted economically vulnerable families. In some cases, children were sold with parental consent, while in others, they were abducted and later trafficked.The matter came to light after a complaint by Rajesh Goswami, a Hathras resident, whose four-year-old grandson went missing on May 9, 2025. During investigation, police scanned over 500 CCTV cameras and tracked down the accused across several states, which finally reached AP.The boy, who was to be sold for Rs 1.8 lakh, was rescued at Vijayawada, and five accused were arrested and sent to jail. Four other kidnapped children were also found, leading to busting of a “larger trafficking network”.An FIR was subsequently registered against eight persons under BNS section 143 (1)-(5), related to child trafficking. Police said the kingpin, Mallika Arjun, was from Visakhapatnam.ADGC Govind Vashishta said, “After examining all evidence and witnesses on Thursday, the fast track court of judge Mahendra Kumar Rawat acquitted three Delhi-based accused due to lack of evidence, and the remaining five were convicted and sentenced to 10 years in jail.”(With inputs from Sumit Sharma in Hathras)