[India] Poverty forces grandmother to sell baby

From NDTV

In a glaring example of what abject poverty can do, a three-month-old baby was sold in Bela village of Vaishali district in Bihar for a paltry sum of Rs 2700.

Baby Shamshool's mother had eloped leaving her days-old baby with her deaf and mute husband. Soon after the father also disappeared.

The baby's grandmother, no longer able to care of the child, sold him into a family of beggars out of sheer desperation.

"I sold the child for Rs 2,700 because I could not take proper care of the child," said Shahjahan Khatun, grandmother.

"I got to know that a child is being sold in the village. Since I don't have a child, I bought the baby for Rs 2,700," said Nazma Khatoon.

Real motive

Some people however, are skeptical of the couple's motives and say that the prospect of an increased income is the real motive behind the adoption.

They fear that baby Shamshool could end up like several other children, maimed or disfigured, so that their parents could leverage them while begging.

Whatever be the outcome of this sale, Bihar's lessons in poverty have forever changed baby Shamshool's future.