Woman sells one-year-old son

Patna: A woman in Bihar sold her one-year-old son after her second husband refused to let her stay in his home with the baby, police said on Saturday.

Police said the woman allegedly sold the baby for Rs60,000 (Dh3,314) last week but the case was reported to them on Friday. The incident took place in the Muzaffarpur district of Bihar.

According to reports, the woman, identified as Poonam Devi, was married to Mukesh Kumar some four years ago. However, her husband went away to eke out a livelihood for the family soon after the birth of their baby boy.

During this time, the woman fell in love with another man, Sanjiv Das. They got married two months ago.

Trouble began soon thereafter when the woman arrived at her new husband’s home with her one-year-old child. Reports said her second husband, who already had a son and daughter from an earlier marriage, refused to allow her to stay with her son.

The woman with the help of her close relatives sold the child for Rs60,000 to another villager.

The matter came to light when the baby’s grandparents contacted the woman last week and found that the baby was missing. They had visited the woman’s home to take their grandchild home after reports emerged that she was unwilling to bring him up because of the tension in her marriage.

“We have received a complaint from the grandparents of the victim and are investigating the case,” police officer Manoj Kumar Chaudhary told the media today.

Bihar is infamous for human trafficking. As per an official report, around 4,000 children have gone missing in Bihar since 2013.

Reports said altogether 5,527 children went missing during this period out of which only 1,667 could be traced. The state government has sought help from many non government organisations to track down the missing children but the move has failed to yield any desirable results.