A day after a 46-year-old woman claimed to have sold off her newborn baby girl for Rs. 200, police recovered the infant from a family residing in Aminjikarai in Chennai. However, the police said that no money was involved in the exchange, adding that the amount in question was given only to meet the bus fare.
Two women contractual staff at the Hosur Government hospital, who took the baby from the mother, are being questioned in this connection. The mother, identified as Dhimmakka of Vanamangalam in Thally, delivered a baby girl at the Hosur Government Hospital on December 8. Dhimmakka and her husband Muthirappa, both daily-wage labourers, already had six children, including three boys and three girls.
The hospital had advised tubectomy for Dhimmakka and the surgery was scheduled for December 11. However, Dhimmakka left the hospital on December 10 without an official discharge.
Following this, the Hosur GH contacted the Thally Primary Health Centre and asked for the local Accredited Social Health Activist (ASHA) worker to make a house visit to check on the mother and the child for vaccination. When the ASHA worker visited Vanamangalam on Tuesday, Dhimmakka told her that she had given away her child to a woman.
Following this, the local VAO and the Hosur GH were alerted and a complaint was made to the Hosur Town Police Station. According to the police, Dhimmakka admitted during interrogations that she did not want to keep the baby girl and had given her away to a staff member of the Hosur GH.
The police said that Jyothi, a staff, and Yasodha, a sanitation worker, took the child from Dhimmakka when they saw her leaving the hospital. Jyothi had taken the child to her relative’s house at Aminjikarai in Chennai, where the baby was to be given away for ‘adoption’ to a childless couple.
The couple, reportedly a teacher and a former government employee, were known to Jyothi's family.
Burdened by the reality of life
There were poignant moments at the District Child Welfare Committee (CWC) Office here on Wednesday evening, as a tired Dhimmakka broke down into tears as she formally handed over her baby to the Chairperson of the Child Welfare Committee, Vincent Sunderaj.
Her husband Muthirappa stood there disinterested, shrugging if off when CWC officials suggested that he undergo a vasectomy instead. When asked why the couple were resistant to family planning, he answered for his wife: “She has a wheezing problem.”
“I have to take care of my children. I’ll go to the hospital when all my problems are over. I haven’t eaten anything since yesterday, and I have to go cook for the children,” said Dhimmakka.
Two of the girls are already married, and the youngest, an eight-year-old daughter, has never seen the insides of a school. As the rain clouds cast dark shadows, Dhimmakka and her husband set out to reach Vanamangalam, a place that is 85-odd km away, through the forested terrain in Thally. The baby, tucked in a quilted bed, was waiting to be sent to the adoption shelter in Hosur. Even as the police mulled legal action, it appeared the authorities may not press charges against the two women, since no money was involved.
