Parents Allegedly Sell Newborn Baby For $88 Due To Poverty, Infant Rescued

A newborn baby girl in India was allegedly sold by her parents to a childless couple for $88 because they were poor.

The police in the eastern state of Odisha said Saturday the infant was rescued after a worker at a rural child care center alerted them about the incident.

Authorities said a case has been filed under Section 317 (abandoning child) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Section 81 (sale of children) of the Juvenile Justice Act against the child's parents as well as the couple, who allegedly bought the baby.

“The parents of the infant sold her off last month and it came to light after local anganwadi workers tipped off the child development project officer. The infant’s parents are daily laborers and already got two girls. They allegedly sold the third child due to poverty,” district child protection officer Niranjan Kar told the Hindustan Times.

“Though the parents of the child claimed that the couple who have taken the baby are related to them, we did not find it to be the case during investigation. The infant has been rescued and will be handed over to her natural parents after due process.”

A senior police officer told NDTV the baby was handed over to the child welfare committee after being rescued.

An investigation is currently underway into the incident, and no arrests have been made so far. The newborn's parents have denied allegations of selling their baby.

"We are very poor and already have two daughters… So, we decided to give the newborn to one of our relatives," the father of the newborn identified as Suresh Das claimed.

Last month, a woman in the state of Madhya Pradesh was arrested for allegedly selling her newborn baby at the behest of her second husband for $7,000. The police also took the buyer, identified as Leena, into custody along with those who had helped them carry out the purchase of the child. The cops said the woman, identified as Shaina B, was pregnant when she got married to Antar Singh. "Antar Singh wanted to get the child aborted but it could not happen. After this, Singh hatched a plan to sell the child," Hira Nagar police station officer Satish Patel told NDTV. "When the child was born, he was sold within 15 days to Leena, a resident of Dewas for 5.5 lakh ($7,000) via touts. Two months after this incident, we got the information about the matter from an informer."