A four-and-a-half-month-long manhunt for a key accused in an interstate child trafficking case ended in Punjab with the arrest of the kingpin from Sri Muktsar Sahib. The Bahadurgarh Police also arrested another man in the operation.The key accused was identified as Pargat Singh alias Laddi, while the other accused was identified as Mukhpal Singh alias Mukkha.Bahadurgarh Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) Mayank Mishra said Pargat Singh was one of the main operatives of the trafficking network and had managed to escape during a police operation on March 31. His sister-in-law, Baljinder Kaur alias Babbu, had also been found to be involved in the procurement and sale of infants.“The network is involved in the procurement and sale of more than 50 infants and has links spanning more than ten states, from Punjab to Maharashtra. A reward of Rs 5,000 was announced for information leading to Pargat Singh’s arrest. It took more than four-and-a-half months to track him down as he frequently changed his location to evade arrest. During this period, several raids were conducted at his suspected hideouts in Punjab and other states,” Mishra added.The DCP further stated that the accused ran the network in a highly organised manner, with several family members assisting him in different roles. Pargat projected himself as the head of an organisation involved in child adoption and used this identity to build a network of commission-based agents.“The agents were assigned specific roles and were deliberately kept unaware of the entire operation. They were given a 5–10 per cent commission on the transaction value of an infant, with payments made entirely in cash. Pargat maintained direct contact with parents to procure infants, while separate agents were used for different stages of the operation. This compartmentalised structure was apparently intended to ensure that no single agent had complete knowledge of a case, thereby helping the network conceal its activities,” said the DCP.Mishra said both accused had been taken on eight-day police remand and were being interrogated to identify other members of the network and unravel the entire chain, from the procurement of newborns to their transfer and sale, while also identifying every individual who played a role in the operation.He said the latest arrests had taken the total number of accused arrested in the case to 23.