Top policeman's wife trafficking in babies

In the latest and worst twist to the baby trafficking scam, 52 more babies were rescued from an unlicensed child adoption organisation run by a senior Indian Police Service (IPS) officer's wife and the place shut down.

The babies, mostly under six months, were taken to the government-run 'Sisu Vihar' after two officials of the Central Adoption Resource Agency (CARA) – a federal organisation – inspected the home during a check of unlicensed adoption centres in the state.

Officials said 'Precious Moments' outside Hyderabad was owned by Anita Sen, the wife of Additional Director General of Police Swaranjit Sen. The home was first sealed late on Wednesday night after CARA and state government officials led by the Ranga Reddy district Collector found evidence of adoptions. They said the agency was buying babies and selling them through the Indian Council of Social Welfare (ICSW) owned by a former Congress party minister for child and women's welfare, Roda Mistry.

Collector Ajay Jain said said Precious Moments acted as a "transferring agency" and was not an adoption agency. He said the babies were found there despite documents seized showing they were transferred to ICSW.

Late evening, officials said 158 babies were rescued so far, of which 30 were undergoing treatment in two hospitals in Hyderabad. On the second day of investigations being carried by two CARA officials, the authorities were also trying to locate yet another home outside the city where an unknown number of babies were allegedly being kept.

During his daily teleconference with ministers, Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu asked Home Minister T. Devender and Women and Child Welfare Minister S. Saraswathi to submit to him an action taken report on the adoption conspiracy and suggest a plan to prevent its recurrence.

The minister conceded here that the monitoring mechanism for voluntary organisations was not effective and tried as always to blame the federal government. "It has been affected largely by the federal government's silence over the volume of the grants its gives these organisations resulting in the state government being kept in the dark about their transactions."

All week, NGOs generally quick on their feet to air their views on any subject and attack state government policies, this time maintained an uncanny but noticeable silence. The convener of Banjara Bheri – an organisation for tribal Lambadas – demanded stringent measures to prevent the sale of children and put the blame squarely on NGOs, defending tribal Lambada women for selling their girl babies blaming their deeds on "poverty, illiteracy ad ignorance".

The convener appeared to contradict himself however when he admitted that Lambada women had been selling their babies for 25 years. Meanwhile, a voluntary organisation – Vishwa Christu Parishad – has warned NGOs against patronising Christian names while indulging in child trafficking and threatened to expose their names on the net.

It also asked the state government to "strengthen the hands" of genuine non-governmental agencies working to uplift society setting a new tone to the adoption racket that has rocked the state for a week.

The story of Savitri, director of the Tandur-based John Abraham Bethany home, is turning out to be a classic rags to riches one. An orphan herself, Savitri's real name is Shanta Kumari and was adopted by John Abraham, a railway worker who died in 1970. John Abraham started the Kokila Cottage, a genuine home for poor and destitute orphans in Tandur. After his death, Savitri took it over and renamed it the John Abraham Bethany home in 1974.

Savitri then contacted an American social welfare organisation and began to send them photographs of disabled and poor children convincing them of her need for funds. When Savitri and another adoption conman Peter Subbaiah were first arrested in 1994, police found Rs50 million in her bank account.

On April 16 when the police knocked on her door, Savitri asked to be excused for a moment as she was praying but slipped out through the back door into hiding.