A 30-year-old impoverished mother of five children allegedly sold her newborn baby girl, her sixth child, for ₹ 5,000 to a woman on the premises of the District Headquarters Hospital here on Sunday.
On being tipped off by the hospital’s security guards, the police traced the baby and admitted her to the hospital a few hours later. The woman identified as Sammakka, wife of Bhagavan, a rickshaw puller of Ranganayakulagutta, gave birth to a baby girl at the State-run hospital here on Saturday.
The poverty-stricken couple already have four daughters and one son. Apparently forced by extreme poverty, she had “sold” her newborn baby as part of a deal allegedly brokered by a sweeper of the hospital to a middle-aged woman of Chatakonda in Bhadradri-Kothagudem district on Sunday morning.
One of the security guards grew suspicious of Sammakka and alerted the police, who in turn tracked down the middle-aged woman along with the baby and brought them to the hospital.
The woman, who bought the baby, reportedly told the police that she wanted to give the baby to her childless son Hospital sources said Sammakka, who ekes out a living by “begging”, allegedly tried to sell one of her daughters at a government hospital in Hyderabad a few years ago.
Carrying her visibly feeble fifth daughter in her lap, Sammakka expressed her inability to feed her newborn baby citing extreme poverty and alleged indifference of her “alcoholic husband.” I had handed over my one-day-old baby to a middle-aged woman who assured to take care of her, said Sammakka.
Sammakka’s newborn baby girl and her five other children will be produced before the District Child Welfare Committee to ensure their proper care, the District Child Protection Officer Vishnu Vandana told The Hindu .
