The arrest of a middle-aged woman on Monday has blown the lid off a baby theft racket allegedly operating in the city.

According to police, a gang comprising women is active and waiting to steal infants and sell them to childless couples.

Sources said interrogations revealed that the woman’s motive was to hand over the one-and-a-half-year-old baby to a childless couple.

“The lady is being interrogated. Until now, she had been adamant towards answering questions. However, the police have come to know that she intended to give away the child to a couple who were craving a baby. There could be a gang of such women who prowl in and around government and private hospitals and clinics waiting for a chance to grab babies,” an officer at Jakkanpur police station said.

Alok Kumar, the father of the baby named Anand Raj, said he had gone to a private clinic at Yaarpur for his wife’s treatment for a broken hand. Alok handed over Anand to this woman for a while taking her as a fellow patient.

As he made sure his wife was receiving anaesthesia, the woman disappeared.

Fortunately, Alok discovered this soon enough and caught hold of the woman at the Patna-Gaya railway crossing, a few metres from the clinic. She was handed over to the cops.

“It seems these women are contacted or they contact childless couples in and around Patna and steal babies for a cost. The cost can be anything ranging from Rs 5,000 to Rs 10,000 or even more. These women go inside hospitals and clinics and pose as patients, attendants or hospital employees. They target government hospitals like PMCH or NMCH owing to the large number of patients,” another police officer said.

On March 20, 2014, a woman had been caught by people after she was on her way out of PMCH’s maternity ward after stealing a baby.

The incident occurred when the mother of the baby saw her and raised an alarm. On December 31 last year, a middle-aged woman had been successful in stealing an infant from the same ward just four hours after it was born.

The CCTV camera installed in the ward had captured her getting out of the ward with the child. The case remains unsolved and no recoveries have been made by the police.

“Not much is known about this gang until now. The couples who pay the gang members are not just from Patna but from different districts of the state. They come to Patna for a short while. After hiring these women and getting the baby, they head back to their homes quietly. The gang can also be connected to other states. We have got a breakthrough with the arrest of this woman. We shall soon come to know their modus operandi and if at all there are more gangs on the job, the police officer said.