UP Police Bust Gang Stealing Kids in And around Varanasi, Selling Them in Bihar, Rajasthan, Jharkhand

In a major breakthrough, Uttar Pradesh Police have busted an interstate gang of child traffickers that was active in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s parliamentary constituency Varanasi. Cops said within the span of a year, the gang lifted around 50 children from Varanasi and its neighbouring districts, whom they sold for Rs 2 lakh to Rs 10 lakh in states like Bihar, Jharkhand, and Rajasthan, said police. The matter was reported to Varanasi’s Bhelupur Police Station.

Police have arrested 10 gang members including three women and have recovered three toddlers including a three-month-old from their rented accommodation.

Ashok Mutha Jain, police commissioner of Varanasi, said, “Based on the information from the gang members, our team is now trying to recover the children, who will be handed over to their parents.”

However, tracking the gang members was not an easy task. Jain said the team began pursuing the gang of child traffickers after some CCTV footage came to the fore in which one of the culprits was seen lifting a child from a pavement at Ramchandra Shukla Crossing in Ravindrapuri area of Varanasi, around seven days ago. “In the CCTV footage, two members of the gang were spotted. With the help of the CCTV footage, we managed to track one of the gang members identified as Santosh,” the police commissioner added.

During interrogation, what Santosh revealed left the cops astounded. “During interrogation, Santosh said that there are nine more active gang members including three women who used to target the footpath dwellers and used to lift their children whom they would sell to needy couples in other states. Based on the information, we arrested nine more gang members who were staying at the rented accommodation in the area under Bhelupur police station,” the police commissioner said.

Manish Jain from Rajasthan, Mahesh Rana from Jharkhand, Vinay Mishra from Shivdaspur, Shikha Devi from Varanasi, Sunita Devi from Jharkhand, Santosh Kumar Gupta from Shivdaspur, Yashoda Pandit from Jharkhand, and Bhawarlal from Rajasthan are the identified gang members.

The commissioner said four teams had left for Jharkhand, Rajasthan, Gujarat, and different districts of Uttar Pradesh for the recovery of the children.