Assam: Baby girl selling racket busted, three held in Kokrajhar

Amidst ongoing COVID-19 Pandemic across the state, a baby child selling racket has been busted and three persons including father have been arrested and sent to jail for selling a four-month-old baby girl in Kokrajhar district.

  In a shocking incident,a father of two children,sold his four-month-old baby girl to a family hailing from Karbi Anglong, amounting to Rs.45,000.00 due to owing poverty in his family. The incident took place at remote Tontula Mandariagaon forest village under Kachugaon police station in Kokrajhar district in the first week of July. The mother does not know about the sale of her baby girl. Woman’s husband was identified as Deepak Brahma alias Handi, a returnee migrant from Gujarat. He lost his job due to COVID-19 lockdown and returned home empty pocket. In his village also he has no work and no money to feed his wife, one year girl and four months months old baby.

However, the NEDAN foundation,a Kokrajhar based NGO working for human welfare and Kachugaon police rescued the baby girl from broker Pranita Narzary on 7th July last following villagers intimated to the Nedan Foundation.

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An FIR was lodged with Kachugaon police station,case registered No.99/20, under section(u/s) 370 IPC and accordingly the police arrested three persons including baby’s father and other two brokers for involvement with baby selling case.

The arrested have been identified as Deepak Brahma alias Handi(35), father of the baby girl,Pranita Narzary and Rita Brahma(both are brokers of the baby sold).

Chairperson of Nedan Foundation,Kokrajhar Digambar Narzary told that NGO members and police jointly initiated a baby child selling case and were able to rescue the sold baby from the hands of brokers in Kokrajhar town on 7th July.

He mentioned that the COVIOD-19 Pandemic has hit so hard on the lives of poor communities to survive. Especially the daily wage, farmers, forest dwellers are struggling to feed their family members due to no work and earning. The situation has come into extreme use today where parents are forced to sell their new born baby for money to survive.

In other ways traffickers are actively working round the clock to reach out to poverty stricken unreachable forest villages and flood affected areas to motivate the poor parents and take their kids to safe haven.

And accordingly, S Basumatary(name changed) hailing from Tontula Mandariagaon forest village under Kachugaon police station, has sold her own baby girL.

He said that the two rich women approached him and motivated him to sell his four months old baby for adoption in Karbi Anglong district in Assam. Finally, the deal was done to sell the baby for 45000 and two ladies forcefully took away the child from her mother's arms.

“The mother not able to bear the lost feeling raised an alarm in the village and villagers approached Kachugaon police to recover the baby accordingly police arrested the baby's father. While questioning him he narrated the case and the baby was rescued from two ladies house in Kokrajhar town and the baby was finally handed over to mother' arms and accordingly all involved persons in the racket were arrested”, he added.

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