“He must come down from his throne,” she said in a statement.

She believes the baby racket operates unknown to the authorities.

The network includes doctors, healthcare providers, the police and National Registration Department (NRD) staff, she said.

She was commenting on Al Jazeera’s 101 East programme ripping open “a stinking can of worms”.

The 101 East report on the baby-selling syndicates, said Kasthuri, comes in the wake of similar exposes.

These include “unwanted” refugees in Malaysia, Sabah’s street children, the plight of the Orang Asli and vicious human trafficking rings operating with impunity.

“It’s happening in our own backyard, right under our own noses,” said Kasthuri. “The cancerous baby-selling syndicates have been reigning for years, undetected.”

She reckons they have been protected by doctors, welfare homes, NRD staff and the police.

The phenomenon was not new, she added. “The BBC reported back in 2002 on the baby-selling racket in the country.”

The BBC report on July 22, 2002 was titled “Police target Malaysia baby-snatchers”.

The BBC found that one syndicate kept 30 pregnant women at a single apartment in Kuching, Sarawak.

Even after 14 years, said the MP, syndicates in the country find the buying and selling of babies to be a profitable industry.

Kasthuri felt the IGP was acting on an impulse in denying the truth. “Malaysia was a hub for the baby trade.”

The BBC report quashed the IGP’s claims that Malaysia was not a hub for baby-selling, said Kasthuri.

She said she raised the issue of the rising number of babies born out of wedlock — according to Jakim statistics — and the adoption process in Parliament on Oct 30, 2014.

In 2014, she said, there were 3,700 applications to adopt babies. “They were on a waiting list.

“It’s estimated there are over 400,000 children in local orphanages, waiting to be adopted,” she said.

“Despite this, we have become a baby selling hub.”