Newborn sold on Facebook for US$ 14,000
Mumbai (AsiaNews) - A new baby born in a hospital in Ludhiana (Punjab) was sold for 800,000 rupees (US$ 14,750) over Facebook. For police, this was the first case of child trafficking via social media. The incident came to light when the baby's mother, Noorie, filed a complaint with the police that the child, delivered on 3 April, went missing from the nursing home where she had delivered him.
The baby's maternal grandfather Feroze Khan, a nurse called Sunita and another employee of a private nursing home had taken the infant and posted a picture of him on the internet, before finalising the sale with a businessman in New Delhi.
Since Noorie had been deserted by her husband, her father wanted to arrange a second marriage for her. To do so, he "thought he should get rid of his daughter's child from her first husband by selling him off," Ludhiana Commissioner of Police Ishwar Singh said.
The police have also detained the child's "buyer", one Amit Kumar from New Delhi. They raided his home in the national capital where they found the child before returning him to his mother.
Each year, tens of thousands of children are caught up in human trafficking destined for illegal adoptions, child labour or prostitution.
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