Ajay Jain, administrator of the Ranga Reddy district says the home does not have a government licence to offer children for adoption. It could not explain how it acquired the children, he said. The raids are part of police action against adoption agencies committing irregularities and indulging in child trafficking. The children are being procured from their parents in poor, backward tribal areas, officials say. Some poor parents give up their girls because they fear they will not be able to pay dowry for them when they are married.
Dowries are illegal in India but the custom is still practised in most rural, and many urban, areas.