Mumbai Crime: Job hunt lands Malad woman in surrogacy racket

The woman underwent tests for a month in Hyderabad after which she was declared unfit for surrogacy. Representation pics

A 22-year-old Malad woman got trapped in a surrogacy racket after she got into a relationship with a colleague at a Navi Mumbai lab. The man sent her to Hyderabad to rent her womb saying it would fetch them Rs 4.5 lakh. Her world turned upside down after doctors declared her unfit and she was unable to return the token money. She was eventually rescued by the Malad police and brought to the city.

The Malad police uncovered the racket after the young woman's mother approached them in September saying her daughter had gone missing. A team comprising inspector D Ligade and sub-inspector Janardhan Shinde tracked her down to Hyderabad. Sources in the police department said the woman was in desperate need of a job during the pandemic and had asked an Instagram friend to find her a job.

The Insta friend helped her with a job at a diagnostic laboratory in Ghansoli in February. She then got into a relationship with a 24-year-old colleague, said a police officer. "He took her to the homes of his friends and relatives in Kalyan and Taloja and had sex with her on the pretext of marrying her."

However, the lab soon shut down for some reason. In her statement to the police, the woman said her boyfriend wanted to settle in Pune. He coaxed her to come to Pune. "He said we both will both work and purchase a house," she told the police. In May, the woman visited Pune after telling her family that she was going there to look for a job. That's when the boyfriend persuaded her to be a surrogate mother and told her that it would fetch them a lot of money.

On July 10, he asked her to board a train from platform No. 7 at CSMT and meet a woman named Reshma. However, she was told that they were going to Hyderabad. The boyfriend asked her to be with Reshma and assured her that there was nothing to worry about. In Hyderabad, Reshma took her to a hospital at Ameerpet and she was kept in a room on the second floor. For the next month, doctors ran several tests on her. During that time, the boyfriend visited her twice, said a police officer.

"The boyfriend told her that she would be getting Rs 4.5 lakh once she becomes a surrogate mother. They had also accepted some token money. However, doctors found her unfit for surrogacy. That's when the boyfriend realised that they would not get the money. He fled from Hyderabad," said an officer.

The woman said she fell in love with the accused when they worked in a Ghansoli laboratory. Representation pic

Left with no money and support, the woman called her mother on September 28 and told her to go to the police. Her mother then filed a missing complaint. "When our team visited Hyderabad, she was evasive initially. We rescued her on October 11 and brought her to Mumbai. She slowly opened up," said another officer.

Senior PI Ligade said they booked the boyfriend for rape and under other sections of the Indian Penal Code on October 13. "We have transferred the case to Kalyan Zone 3 police for further investigation as the accused had physical relations with the victim on the pretext of marriage in Kalyan," he said.

11 Oct
Day when the woman was rescued in Hyderabad