A criminal complaint was filed against the adoption home, accusing it of keeping the children in unauthorised custody. The home did not have a government licence to offer children for adoption and could not explain how it acquired the children. The raids are part of police action to combat child trafficking by adoption agencies. The children are being procured from their parents in poor, backward tribal areas, officials say. Some parents give up their girl children because they fear they will not be able to pay a 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.