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The Hindu
an hour ago
- The Hindu
Telangana's surrogacy scam: The business of selling babies
The Secunderabad railway station in Telangana is a noisy transit hub. Thousands of people enter and exit the concourse every day. Ad jingles in Hindi, Telugu, English, and Bengali, about the various medical procedures offered by hospitals across the city, blare over the din. Billboards outside the station feature smiling couples with babies. The city, along with Hyderabad, is a significant hub for medical tourism in India. In August 2024, after having done some research, Sonam Singh and her husband Akshay travelled to Secunderabad from Kuharwas village near Jhunjhunu in Rajasthan for an in vitro fertilisation (IVF) procedure. They rented a house near the railway station and began searching on the Internet for hospitals nearby. Near the railway station, they found the Universal Srushti Fertility Centre, which promised them an 85% success rate for an IVF procedure. The hopeful couple met the owner, Pachipala Namratha aka Athaluri Namratha, 64. 'The test results showed that we were medically fit to conceive,' says Sonam, speaking over the phone from Kuharwas. 'But the doctor insisted that we opt for surrogacy. She told us that it was safer and more reliable. She also assured us that the clinic would use our sperm and egg, and also handle all the paperwork and legalities.' While an IVF procedure can cost anywhere between ₹2 lakh and ₹6 lakh per cycle, Namratha told the couple that surrogacy would cost them ₹30 lakh. She asked Sonam and Akshay to transfer half the amount through their bank account and pay the remaining in cash, supposedly for the surrogate. Convinced, the couple made their first payment on August 16, 2024. According to the First Information Report filed by Akshay, Namratha also promised the couple that 'a healthy child [would be] delivered... after DNA confirmation.' Nearly a year later, on June 5, Sonam and Akshay were handed a baby at Lotus Hospital in Visakhapatnam. However, the couple grew suspicious when Namratha's clinic refused to perform the DNA test. They took the infant to the DNA Forensics Laboratory in Vasant Kunj, Delhi. To their shock, the results showed that the baby was not theirs. When they returned to Secunderabad to confront Namratha, she had disappeared. Sonam and Akshay approached the Gopalpuram police in Secunderabad, which investigated the matter and uncovered a baby-selling racket. The police booked Namratha under Sections 61, 316, 335, 336, and 340 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita Act, 2023, which deal with criminal conspiracy, criminal breach of trust by carriers, forgery of documents, and related offences. They also booked her under Sections 38, 39, and 40 of the Surrogacy (Regulation) Act, 2021, which deal with prohibitions, punishments, and penalties related to surrogacy practices. Sourcing surrogates According to the Gopalapuram police, Universal Srushti Fertility Centre has cheated at least 15 couples. Promising these couples a baby through surrogacy, it has charged them between ₹20 lakh and ₹30 lakh each, and handed them babies not related to them. It has also furnished falsified documents, say the police. An investigation has revealed that the clinic paid commissions to smaller centres for referrals of potential surrogate mothers and women who wanted to undergo abortions, forged medical reports, and operated without proper licensing. According to the police, an agent called Dhanasri Santoshi struck a deal between a couple from Assam and the clinic. They say the Assamese couple's baby was given to the couple from Rajasthan. The police have arrested the couple from Assam on charges of selling their baby. 'Instead of getting ₹15 lakh, the couple from Assam got ₹90,000 for selling their baby,' says a police officer. The baby has been moved to foster care at Shishu Vihar, a childcare centre under the Women and Child Welfare Department. The police add that they have discovered a disturbing pattern in how surrogates are sourced. The sealed medical facility in Secunderabad is surrounded by lodges and bed-and-breakfast rooms. These lodging facilities were used to house women. A police officer says, 'The agents would approach vulnerable women, particularly those seeking abortions, and offer them money to continue their pregnancy so that they could take the baby later. These newborns would then be passed off as children conceived through surrogacy. This is how people were misled into believing that the babies were biologically theirs.' In at least four known cases in Telangana, women were not paid at all and completely abandoned post-delivery, the officer adds. On November 26, 2024, a woman engaged as a surrogate by a couple died after falling from the ninth floor of a building in Raidurgam in the western part of Hyderabad. According to the police, the victim and her husband, both natives of Odisha, were given accommodation by Rajesh Babu and his wife at their residence. When Rajesh allegedly tried to sexually assault the 26-year-old woman, she tried to escape through the balcony and slipped and died. She was purportedly brought to the city through middlemen for surrogacy for ₹10 lakh, say police reports. Donors in queue As the police widened their probe, they raided a facility operating under the name, Indian Sperm Tech, near Secunderabad East Metro Station, located about 400 metres away from the fertility clinic. They found 17 sperm donors and 11 egg donors waiting in queue at the facility. 'The women donors were brought from Delhi, and the men from Andhra Pradesh and other parts of Telangana. The sperm donors, mostly aged between 22 and 30, were paid ₹1,000-₹1,500 per sample. The men were in need of quick cash,' says a police officer who led the raid. L. Shiva was among the people arrested by the police in the midnight raid. Shiva, 35, from Vizianagaram, brought egg and sperm donors and connected them to the hospital. Another broker who was arrested hails from Indore in Madhya Pradesh. One of the egg donors caught in the raid was a 30-year-old resident from Baksa, Assam. Indian Sperm Tech, reportedly headquartered in Ahmedabad, had allegedly set up the sperm collection unit in Secunderabad without a valid license. 'It is a diagnostic centre,' says an officer from the District Medical and Health Officer's office. 'They collect sperm samples, freeze them, and send them to Ahmedabad. The processed samples (isolated and concentrated to select the healthiest sperm) are then returned with reports and sold to clinics across Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh. The place has been operating for two years without registration.' In trouble before It is a typically busy weekday afternoon on St. Johns Road in Secunderabad. But just a short turn away from this arterial road, the noise fades. A narrow bylane, about 20 feet wide, is almost hidden in plain sight. Two old gates, one swung wide open and the other barely ajar, lead into it. Two policemen sit here, silent witnesses to what the North Zone police uncovered. The building of Namratha's clinic has been sealed and the clinic shut down, following an investigation that exposed the baby-selling racket running under the guise of fertility treatments. 'The hospital operated only on the first two floors. The rest were empty,' says one constable. The two floors were filled with equipment required for childcare and fertility treatment. Rajesh Ravi lived here for 16 years before moving closer to the city centre. He is shocked by the revelations. 'You live somewhere for over a decade and you think you know your neighbourhood. I found nothing suspicious. The only time we were mildly inconvenienced was when too many patients came and there would be many cars on the street,' he says. Rajesh says there was a police case involving the same place about 10 years ago. 'No one talked about it much because back then, news on social media did not reach us as fast as it does now,' he says. 'We knew what was happening here,' says Manu, a lawyer who lives across the street of the four-storied Rushi Test Tube Bab Cent. While the name in English has missing letters, the name in Telugu etched beneath it reveals the complete name — Srusthi Test Tube Baby Centre. 'This place was sealed five times earlier. But eventually things got back to 'normal'. This time I think it is serious and she (Namratha) will not be allowed to carry on the business.' The Telangana Medical Council says Namratha was involved in a surrogacy scandal in 2016. A U.S.-based couple, who had used the clinic's services, had discovered that the child born to them through a surrogate was not biologically related to them. 'Following a police case and court hearings, we suspended the doctor's license for five years, with a lifetime ban on conducting surrogacy procedures,' says Dr. G Srinivas, Vice-Chairman of the Council. Yet, when the suspension period ended, the doctor returned, seeking to have her license reinstated. 'We refused. She was still involved in a court case, and our rules are clear on that,' Dr. Srinivas adds. A stringent law As surrogacy has become an increasingly popular option for couples grappling with infertility, Indian law has become more stringent to ensure that the practice remains ethical and free from commercial exploitation. What once operated in legal grey zones is now bound by clear rules, thanks to the Surrogacy (Regulation) Act, 2021. Under the Act, only altruistic surrogacy is permitted in India. This means a surrogate mother cannot be paid for carrying a child, except for her medical expenses and insurance coverage. Commercial surrogacy, any arrangement involving monetary compensation or profit, is banned and is a punishable offence. According to the Act, all surrogacy procedures must take place at clinics registered under the Act and authorised by the office officially designated as the State Appropriate Authority. . These clinics must comply with strict medical standards and ethical norms. Any attempt to bypass the law, whether through brokers, unregistered clinics, or financial inducements, is considered a criminal offence, punishable with imprisonment of up to 10 years and fines reaching ₹10 lakh. Fertility specialists say the Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) Regulation Act, 2021, and the Surrogacy (Regulation) Act, 2021, have brought much-needed order to what was once a loosely regulated and, at times, opaque system. Dr. Preethi Dayal, who runs the Preethi Fertility Centre in Jangaon district, says prior to the enforcement of the ART law in January 2023, 'many centres operated without oversight. You could bring in any random donor, collect the sample, and proceed with checks or documentation. But we are now bound by very strict protocols. Every donor must be sourced only through a registered ART bank, which keeps Aadhaar-linked records of every sample, though the identity is never disclosed to either doctors or patients.' She adds that the new law mandates comprehensive screening of all donors, including genetic testing, and imposes tight eligibility criteria based on age and health. 'There is no room for ambiguity now. Everything has to be documented and traceable.' Dr. Preethi also points out that, legally and ethically, all third-party donor procedures must be conducted with confidentiality. 'Patients are never informed about the identity of the donor. The child born through surrogacy belongs legally and emotionally to the intended parents. That is the framework we follow,' Dr. Preethi says. To reduce the risk of human error, the doctor says many IVF clinics have now adopted the RI Witness system, a high-tech safety protocol that tracks every sample using barcode verification. 'Every patient is given a barcode-linked card. Before processing a sample, we scan the card in the system. If there is any mismatch, the entire hospital is alerted,' she says. While many corporate hospitals have already adopted this system, Dr. Preethi says smaller or less-regulated clinics may not yet have the infrastructure or the will to comply. 'Some centres are still conducting 10 to 15 IVF cycles a day. Without safeguards like the RI Witness system, the chances of mix-ups increase,' she says. Additional reporting by Naveen Kumar Names have been changed to protect privacy
Time of India
2 hours ago
- Time of India
Another Cooch Behar man gets Assam NRC notice
Jalpaiguri: Yet another Cooch Behar resident has received an NRC notice from Assam's Foreigners Tribunal. Baxirhat resident Dipankar Sarkar, who works as a carpenter in Guwahati's Paltan Bazar, has been residing in Assam for over a decade. In 2014, he was summoned by Assam Police on suspicion of being a Bangladeshi intruder and a case was registered against him in 2015. The notice, dated Jan 24 this year, was received by Sarkar in March. It directs him to appear before the tribunal with documents to establish his Indian nationality. You Can Also Check: Kolkata AQI | Weather in Kolkata | Bank Holidays in Kolkata | Public Holidays in Kolkata Sarkar disclosed the receipt of the notice on Thursday evening. Soon, Cooch Behar TMC president Avijit De Bhowmik shared an image of the notice on social media. While TMC has advised Sarkar to disregard the notice and assured him of all necessary assistance, BJP accused TMC of trying to play the "Bengali card". Similar notices were earlier issued to three other residents of Cooch Behar — Uttam Kumar Brajabashi, Nishikanta Das and Mamina Bibi.
Time of India
3 hours ago
- Time of India
State sends ASI to probe worker's death in Pune
1 2 Jalpaiguri: The death of a 27-year-old man from Ambari in Jalpaiguri's Raiganj in Pune last week under mysterious circumstances has prompted a probe by the Bengal govt. The deceased, Dipu Das, used to work as a daily wage labourer. On July 29, his brothers, Gouranga and Apu, called him on the phone to inform Das that his mother had passed away on July 28, only to realise that Das had too had died the same day. The agency with which Dipu worked in Pune said he fell down under the influence of alcohol and was admitted to BJ Government Medical College and Sassoon General Hospital after the fall, but succumbed to his injuries. The death certificate issued by the hospital stated "complications following spinal cord injuries" as cause of death. You Can Also Check: Kolkata AQI | Weather in Kolkata | Bank Holidays in Kolkata | Public Holidays in Kolkata But a deep cut on Das's neck made his brothers suspicious about the cause of death. At first, Trinamool netas intervened, apprehending the death was part of a pattern of atrocities on Bengali-speaking people in BJP-run states. Then, the state govt intervened. Acting on the govt's instructions, ASI Binod Ram from Bhorer Alo police outpost flew down to Pune from Bagdogra with Dipu's brothers. Sources said the ASI will coordinate with Pune cops and check if there was any discrepancy.
