Police in Maharashtra’s Thane have exposed a human trafficking racket with the arrest of five persons trying to sell a 7-day-old baby for ₹6 lakh, officials said on Friday (December 26, 2025).
Acting on inputs, the Anti-Human Trafficking Cell of the city police laid a trap near a hotel in the Badlapur West area on Wednesday (December 24) night. They used a decoy buyer to confirm that a group was indeed trying to sell a newborn, an official said.
The gang was paid ₹20,000 via UPI as token money, with the remaining balance of ₹5.8 lakh to be paid in cash, he said. After being alerted by the decoy customer, a police team reached the spot and arrested all five persons who had come for the deal.
The accused have been identified as Shankar Sambhaji Manohar (36), who accepted the cash, Reshma Shahabuddin Shaikh (35), who had got the baby, Igatpuri-based agents Nitin Sambhaji Manohar (33) and Shekar Ganesh Jadhav (35), and Asif Chand Khan (27), an agent based in Mankhurd, Mumbai.
A sixth accomplice, identified as Sabina, is on the run and police are trying to trace her, he said.
