Bengal woman sells baby for Rs 20,000, says cheated in deal by neighbour

Police in Cooch Behar district in north Bengal started a search on Thursday for a one-month-old girl who was sold by her mother Laxmi Raut, 30, last month soon after she was born.

The deal, however, did not go as planned. Raut claims she was given Rs 20,000 by the family that bought the baby. But she later came to know that Hemanti Shah, her neighbuor who struck the deal, received Rs 50,000.

The mother had a heated exchange with Shah and the entire neigbourhood at Sahitya Sabha Bylane in the Badherpur area of Cooch Behar town came to know about shady deal.

A local journalist who got the wind of the happening lodged a complaint with the district child protection committee.

Snehashis Chowdhury, district child protection officer, Cooch Behar, said, “We have informed the police and our legal officers are investigating the matter.”

“A local journalist brought the matter to our notice after a fight broke out between mother and her neighbour who helped her sell the baby,” Chowdhury said.

The police, the child welfare committee suspect and locals suspect that Laxmi Raut and her husband sold another child. Local people have told them that the couple had four children but only two can be seen now.

The family does not have a steady source of income. The police say Laxmi’s husband is an alcoholic and gambler.

On Wednesday evening a neighbour told Raut that Shah had taken Rs 50,000 from the family to whom they had sold the child. “But I got only Rs 20,000,” Raut confessed before some reporters who visited her home.

Later Wednesday night Raut had a quarrel with Shah who claimed that Rs 20,000 was all that was received.

Sameer Pal, inspector-in-charge of Kotwali Police Station in Cooch Behar town said, “The Rauts are very poor. The mother was given Rs 20,000 when she handed over the child to a family. It is apparent that legal procedures associated with adoption were not followed.”

“Shah has named the family that bought the child. We are trying to locate them,” said Chowdhury.