Mumbai: Alarmed by increasing cases of child trafficking, Maharashtra’s Women and Child Welfare Department wants DNA tests to be conducted of women seen begging on roads to establish whether they are the real mothers of the babies they carry along with them.
“The government constantly receives complaints of children being trafficked to Maharashtra under false pretext. Parents of these children are either lied to or lured due to their poor socio-economic conditions thus forcing them to sell their children. These newborns are then used as a tool to make money,” a WCD official said.“We suspect that a large number of women carrying babies in their arms and begging on the streets are not their real mothers,” the official said.
“It seems that babies are being drugged with sleep inducing medicines so that they do not cause hindrance to those who want to make money using them,” the official added.
