Chennai: Childless couple buys newborn for Rs 10,000
The child's biological mother was traced and she hinted that she had voluntarily handed over the child to the childless couple.
Chennai: A childless couple from Villivakkam was taken in for questioning by the City Police after the couple admitted that they had purchased a newborn baby boy from the Government Hospital for Women and Children, Egmore on Thursday.
The couple was identified as Makesh (45), who works in a private firm and Vidya (42), who is a maternity assistant in a Primary Health Centre in Madhavaram. Armed with a sick newborn baby, the Villivakkam residents turned up at the Outpatients counter at the Government Children's Hospital, and the baby boy was admitted. The doctor who saw the child grew suspicious as the child's mother did not bear any signs of maternity and was not able to account for the birth either by C-Section or by normal delivery.
The doctor alerted the Outpost in the Hospital premises, and a preliminary enquiry revealed the child had been ‘purchased’. The case was referred to Rajamangal-am police station, which has jurisdiction over where the infant changed hands.
Sources said that the child was born on March 18 in a hospital in Pattalam near Otteri. The couple got in touch with the child's mother and convinced her to sell the baby. “We are probing into the incident. The couple initially claimed that they bought the child from a doctor working in a hospital in Pulianthope. The claim turned out to be bogus, and the doctor whom they named, refused that he had played any role in it. The child’s biological mother was traced and she hinted that she had voluntarily handed over the child to the childless couple due to her poor financial status. We have registered a case and are pursuing the investigation”, Rajamangalam (law & order) Inspector V. Gopinath told DC.