Indian women targeted in ‘baby scam’

GWALIOR, India: In an intensive care unit, a nurse soothes a crying baby rescued in a raid on a private Indian hospital that police suspect was selling abandoned newborns on the black market.

"She is too weak and needs special care," the nurse said, patting the girl born underweight and premature and receiving treatment at another hospital, run by the government.

"I pray a nice couple adopts her and raises her like their own," the nurse said in the central city of Gwalior.

Police fear staff at the private Palash Hospital were selling babies for as little as 100,000 rupees, with agents convincing unmarried mothers to give birth at the facility and then abandon them.

"Their agents meticulously went about searching for pregnant woman who wanted to abort but instead were convinced to give birth," police superintendent Kumar Prateek who led last month’s raid and investigating the case told AFP.

"They were unwed woman, vulnerable. And the hospital exploited them, offering them secrecy in return for the newborns," he said of the stigma attached to unmarried mothers in socially conservative India.

Police say they have traced five babies born at the now-shuttered Palash -- located just across the road from the government hospital in Gwalior -- and sold illegally to couples in different cities.

However investigators fear the total number could be much higher, with hospital records showing more than 700 babies were delivered there in recent years.