Surrogacy racket accused sent to 5-day police custody

THe Hyderabad law on fri took Dr Athaluri Namratha (65), the possessor of linguistic universal Srushti fecundity Centre at Secunderabad, and the prime accused in the fake surrogacy racket into five-day custody for further questioning, officials familiar with the development said.Namratha, who was arrested along with seven others, by Gopalapuram police on July 27, were remanded to judicial custody by a Nampally criminal court on the same day. On Thursday, the court granted custody of the accused to the police for questioning for five days, starting Friday.After conducting the mandatory medical examination at Gandhi Hospital, the police shifted Namratha to the office of the deputy commissioner of police (north zone) in the afternoon.“I did not commit any crime. It was a fabricated case based on false allegations made by an army guy. I shall disclose all the details shortly,” Namratha told reporters at Gandhi Hospital.However, investigations by the police revealed that this was not the first time that Namratha indulged in the business of illegal child trafficking and fake surrogacy. “She is a habitual offender with several cases pending against her in different police stations across Telangana and Andhra Pradesh,” said the remand report submitted by the Hyderabad police before the court. HT has seen the report.Namratha was booked for cheating the patients with fake IVF procedure cases in 2010 and 2013 in Visakhapatnam and Guntur respectively. Between 2020 and 2023, she was booked in nine other cases, including five in Gopalapuram police station in Secunderabad and four in Visakhapatnam.“She was charged with kidnapping (IPC Section 363), trafficking of persons (Section 370), forgery for the purpose of cheating (Section 468) and pretending fake documents to be genuine (Section 471). In two cases registered in the Maharanipeta police station in Visakhapatnam, she was also charged under Section 81 and 87 of Juvenile Justice Act, which deals with the sale and purchase of children,” the report said.The remand report explained in detail the modus operandi adopted by Namratha in the latest instance of buying a new born male child from an Assam couple and selling them to a Rajasthani couple, claiming that he was born through surrogacy at Visakhapatnam.The couple, who have been in Hyderabad since 2024, had approached Namratha at her Universal Srushti Fertility Centre, seeking the birth of a baby through IVF method. After conducting tests on the mother, Namratha told her that the IVF method would not work out for her and she could obtain a child through surrogacy.The couple were told that the doctors will use their sperm and eggs for surrogacy. The baby would be handed over after DNA confirmation by arranging a woman from the clinic and charged over ₹30 lakh from their service.However, the doctor used different sperm and eggs for surrogacy. After a woman conceived, she was shifted to Visakhapatnam where the woman delivered a baby boy in June this year. Later, the baby was handed over to the couple who left for Rajasthan.When the couple asked the doctor to conduct the DNA tests for the child, Namratha resisted first and later took the samples from husband for a DNA test. When there was no response from the fertility centre for several days, the couple got the tests conducted at a DNA forensic lab in Vasant Kunj in Delhi, whose reports indicated that the baby was not biologically connected to the father.When the couple tried to contact Namratha with the genuine DNA reports, she blocked their mobile numbers and started avoiding them over the phone. On June 23, 2025, the couple visited the clinic at Secunderabad and met Namratha“Namratha admitted her mistake in handing over the wrong surrogacy child to the parents on pretext of fabricated IVF and surrogacy process. She deliberately cheated the couple by collecting huge amounts from the couple,” the remand report said.The report also pointed out that an anaesthetist from Gandhi Hospital was found to be hand in glove with Namratha in conducting the fertility tests at her centre. “The anaesthetist Nargula Sadanandam, who was aware of the illegal operations at Universal Srushti Fertility Centre and was knowingly administering anaesthesia to patients who were undergoing tests. He was also among the arrested,” the report said.Namratha also engaged agents in Visakhapatnam, Hyderabad and Vijayawada, who would lure financially vulnerable women to act as surrogate donors, offering them money and introducing them to her. One of the agents Dhanasri Santoshi, a housewife, was also arrested along with Namratha.The police said Mohammed Ali Adik and Nasreen Begum, the child’s biological parents are currently imprisoned in Chanchalguda jail. Their biological child, who was offered to the Rajasthani couple, was shifted to Sisu Vihar, belonging to the Telangana state women and child welfare department.A case has been registered against Namratha, the biological parents and others under sections 61 (criminal conspiracy), 316 (criminal breach of trust), 335 (making a false document), 336 (forgery), and 340 (forged document or electronic record and using it as genuine) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), and sections 38, 39 and 40 of the Surrogacy (Regulation) Act, 2021.