The police is verifying whether Mullah is associated with any child-trafficking network and has committed a similar crime in the past.

Mumbai: Days after a one-and-a-half-year-old boy went missing from Mankhurd’s Sathe Nagar, it has come to light that the child was abducted by a 21-year-old relative of his parents, Yogita Sable, who is also their neighbour, and sold to a 40-year-old woman who, in turn, sold him to a Goa-based couple for Rs 2.5 lakh.

Nurjahan Mullah (40) had allegedly told Sable that she was a NGO representative and promised her a 30 per cent cut in the amount for which the boy, Ahmad Jafar Kamal Khan, would be sold. The police has arrested Sable and Mullah and detained the Goa couple (identity withheld) to determine their exact role in the crime. The police is verifying whether Mullah is associated with any child-trafficking network and has committed a similar crime in the past.     

On December 5, Ahmad was playing outside his home with Sable when the latter kidnapped him. The investigation officer at Mankhurd police station said, “Our team immediately started searching for the boy, alerted every police station in the area, and also railway stations. We then got a clue that the accused, Sable, was also missing from her home. She came back after three days. We detained her and during questioning, she confessed that she had sold the boy to a woman in Goa.”

DCP Shahaji Umap said, “We immediately sent a police team to Goa and, with the help of Fonda police, arrested Mullah who had a role in selling the baby. The masterminds of the case were arrested i.e. Titwala resident Asha Thakur, who is Mullah’s friend, Sable, and mediator and Karnataka resident Prabha Naik (48).”

DCP Umap said, “The accused allegedly told the couple who were getting the child that the mother of the boy was a widow and wanted to remarry, but she did not want the boy to disturb her new life.”