The issue came to the fore, when Nilesh Gavkar, the husband of Neha Gavkar, a Vasai resident, filed a complaint with the Manickpur police alleging that his wife had been illegally detained by the hospital authorities and their new born infant had been sold by the doctors for a sum of Rs. 1.15 lakh as the Gavkar family had failed to pay hospital fee amounting to Rs 4,500.

When contacted, Senior Police Inspector Pandrinath Mandhre of the Manickpur police station said, “The case came to our attention when Nilesh Gavkar had filed a complaint in mid-December alleging that the two doctors who run the Anuradha Nursing Home— Dr Harshvardhan Bhansali and his son, Ankur — sold the infant to someone after the Gavkar family had failed to clear hospital dues. Nilesh had also complained that his wife was being forced to work as a maid at the clinic.”

After the arrest, the doctor duo were remanded to judicial custody by a local court. “Initially, though the impression was that the doctors had forcibly sold the infant, it has now come to our attention that Neha might have agreed to sell the infant for money. We have also discovered that a fixed deposit account had been opened by the doctors at a local bank in Vasai in the name of Madhuri More— the maiden name of Neha— and Pallavi Desai, another nurse from the hospital. The account has an amount of Rs 90,000,” said Mandhre. As per Mandhre, the money was paid by one Steven, who had bought the infant from the doctors for his childless relatives. “As the doctors have been in judicial custody since their arrest, we couldn’t investigate as to why did they open a joint account in the name of Neha and the nurse. The case has now been transferred to the Thane Crime Branch for further investigations,” Mandhre said.