Addressing a press conference, Senior Superintendent of Police S S Srivastava said Rashmi, a resident of Ropar, tricked the infant’s mother Mamta, a resident of Colony 5, into handing over the child to her on Thursday. Rashmi presented herself as an employee of the PGI and told Mamta a fictitious government grant worth Rs 5,000 for children. After taking consent from her husband Balram Kumar, a carpenter, Mamta accompanied Rashmi to the PGI in an autorickshaw.

“Once there, the woman asked me to wait outside for about half an hour as she got my son medically examined. But when she did not return, we approached the police,” Mamta told mediapersons.

Fearing the involvement of tantriks, the police constituted special teams to locate the child as soon as possible. At Aditya Raj Hospital in Phase-I, Mohali, where Mamta had delivered the child, the police received a tip-off about a doctor who had reportedly sold the child to a family in Ludhiana for Rs 30,000.

The SSP said they were investigating whether the hospital was running a racket involved in selling babies to issueless couples . “We have not interrogated the women yet. Investigations are on and the true picture is expected to emerge in a day or two,” he added.

Modus operandi

After kidnapping the child, the police said, Rashmi reached Aditya Raj Hospital and asked her elder sister Kavita to come there. Kavita had links with the hospital staff who had given her the address of Balram. The sisters met Dr Rashmi Jain, a resident of Sector 23, Chandigarh, and asked her to forge documents pertaining to the child by naming Rashmi as his guardian.

“Rashmi told me that the child belonged to an unmarried girl who can’t keep it but I refused to prepare the documents. She left the child in my hospital and fled,” Dr Rashmi Jain told the police.

Deputy Superintendent of Police (East) Jaswant Singh Khaira said the doctor contacted a nurse in the hosptial, Jaya, and told her about the child. “Jaya knew a childless couple in Ludhiana who were looking to adopt an infant. They contacted the couple and sold them the child with the forged papers for Rs 30,000,” he said. Station House Officer of the Sector-34 police station Inspector Sudershan Thakur said Rashmi, who had kidnapped the boy, did not have a child either. “We are investigating if she had stolen the boy to adopt him or to sell him further,” he added.

The police have seized the records of all deliveries that have taken place in the Mohali hospital and started investigations. The accused will be produced in court on Saturday.