An eight-month pregnant woman from Buria village in Yamunanagar district of Haryana placed an advertisement in a popular vernacular daily of Punjab offering to sell her unborn child.
The lady Pooja (name changed), mother of three and wife of a rickshaw puller, justified the advertisement saying that she wanted to pay off her loans and build a house from the money raised by selling her yet-to-be-born child.
As the advertisement appeared in the newspaper along with her cell number, around 300 calls were made to make a query about the child on sale.
The poor lady in her advertisement said “my husband is a rickshaw-puller now and had incurred losses in business. We don't have means to look after the three children. We have so much of loan to pay and need to build a house too.”
While she wanted Rs 600,000, for the sale of her unborn child, she was offered half the price by a couple interested in adopting the child. legal experts in the city, however, termed it as a case of human trafficking for which the punishment varies between minimum of five years' imprisonment and maximum of life imprisonment.
As selling one's children is a crime, the local police is waiting for a complainant in this issue to take appropriate action against the guilty. So far, the police have not approached the lady to seek an explanation.
“As there was no complainant in the matter, we can't initiate any investigation on our own,” said Nirmal Singh, station house officer of Buria. Asked why police can't take suo motu action instead of waiting for a formal complaint, Singh told The Pioneer that it was up to the higher authorities as they were also aware of the incident.
It is the first incident of its kind in the region when a poor woman is ready to leave her unborn child to get rid of loans and poverty.
In Haryana, those holding BPl (below poverty level) cards are entitled to Rs 75,000 for the construction of a house, as well as access to food grains and other essentials at a highly subsidised rate. But neither has this poor lady got benefits nor has any official from the State Government offered her any financial assistance.