Bogus surrogacy: Cops hunt for biological parents

AHMEDABAD (TOI): The crime branch is now tracking the antecedents of another one-year-old baby allegedly sold to the family of a Porbandar-based doctor. Focus of the probe is to ascertain biological parents of the baby boy.

Crime branch officials say that two baby boys were sold to one family of Porbandar for Rs 4 lakh each. Joint commissioner of police, crime branch, A K Sharma said: "We have also gathered scientific evidence that proves that the doctor and his wife are not the biological parents of the two babies. The two babies were allegedly sold from the hospital of Dr Bharat Atit. Four persons have been made accused in a complaint filed at the Mahila police station. We suspect that more such illegal transactions have taken place from the same hospital."

In December 2012, an offence was registered against Atit by the police investigators at the Mahila police station in Mithakhali. The doctor had then moved the Gujarat high court to seek anticipatory bail. HC had given an interim order that till the next hearing on February 5, from January 26 Atit should report to the crime branch for questioning daily.

"Investigations have proved that Atit had prepared forged documents that showed twin babies were born at his clinic in Saraspur in 2009. The reality is that that babies were born separately to two different women. However, the documents submitted to AMC by Atit's clinic say that the babies were twins born to the Porbandar doctor's wife. We have recovered these documents from the family's house in Porbandar," said Sharma.

Deputy commissioner of police, crime branch, Himanshu Shukla said: "This is the first case of bogus surrogacy that we have detected in the city. We cannot deny the possibility that more city doctors may be involved in this racket of selling babies illegally to childless couples. In this case, one of the surrogate mothers belongs to Ahmedabad, now we are hunting for the address of the other. We shall soon file a second complaint of illegal sale of baby in this regard.

" On February 5, crime branch will submit its progress report to the HC and seek custodial interrogation of the four persons accused in this case.