Woman sells 30-day-old baby to pay husband's loans in India

In an unfortunate incident, an Indian woman sold her newborn baby to pay off her husband's loans, reported Economic Times on Wednesday, leading to her arrest and others who were involved. 

The woman, 40, sold her 30-day-old baby for 150,000 Indian rupees. The incident took place in India's Ramanagara district of Karnataka state. 

However, the police later rescued the baby and placed him in a welfare home in Mandya after arresting the mother. 

The woman's husband had filed a missing person report two days after the baby went missing on December 7 as he suspected his wife's involvement in the disappearance of their newborn son.

The couple has five children and struggled with mounting debts.

"I have loans of over INR300,000, and my wife suggested to me some days ago that we could sell our newborn to a childless couple for money to settle our debt. But I flatly refused, saying she should never think like that," the father told police.

The father said that after he returned home on December 5, he found his son missing.

"When I enquired, my wife told me he had some health issues and she had sent him to a doctor with a relative. Believing that, I had dinner and slept. The next morning, I went to work and returned at night. But there was no trace of my son again, and my wife reiterated what she had said earlier.

"But this time, I got suspicious and asked her to share the number of the doctor or the relative with whom my son was. But she refused, and we assaulted each other over the issue. I sustained a cut on my head," said the husband.

The man then went to the cops and filed a complaint after which the mother was interrogated.

"She tried to mislead us by saying the infant was with her relative. When questioned further, she confessed to selling the baby for INR150,000 to a single woman in Bengaluru," an investigating officer said.

The police then recovered the infant and arrested the mother, two other people who were involved in selling the baby and the woman who bought the child.