Destitute who sold child for Rs. 62.50 found

The impoverished woman who had gone missing on July 15 after she allegedly sold one of her four-month-old male twins to a Nepalese couple for the Nepalese currency equivalent of Indian Rs. 62.50 last Thursday, has been found, Aditya Nath Jha reports.

The impoverished woman who had gone missing on July 15 after she allegedly sold one of her four-month-old male twins to a Nepalese couple for the Nepalese currency equivalent of Indian Rs. 62.50 last Thursday, has been found.

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Confirming the recovery, Araria superintendent of police (SP) Shivdeep Wamanrao Lande said Shannu Khatun (35) and her two remaining children (apart from the one she has allegedly sold) were found on Wednesday, wandering near her native Madanpur village under the police station of the same name, in Araria district of north-eastern Bihar.

“When some policemen spotted her, Khatun and her children were very hungry and in quite a miserable condition. They, then, offered the woman food and milk to her children. She was taken to her house in Madanpur, where her physically challenged husband Md Shaheed was lying helplessly. He, too, was hungry and asked for food”, Lande said.

Thereafter, Khatun and her children were handed over to the district administration.

Prasad had no reply when reporters asked him why all poor people like Khatun could not be provided the benefits of government welfare schemes to which they were entitled.

Ironically, the administration has admitted in its report that the woman had ‘donated’ (not sold) her ailing child to a Nepalese couple after she found it difficult to afford his treatment.