AP couple tries to sell daughter, 2 held

According to police sources, the Chittoor based couple – Manoj (25) and Kavitha (19) has two children, a two year-old and 11-month-old daughter. They both work in a quarry in Chittoor and were unable to take care of their children as they were languishing in poverty. Police said that they reportedly were trying to sell their second child from the time she was three-months-old and got in touch with their ‘friend’ Mahesh, who hails from Puducherry. 

Mahesh recently informed the couple that he has struck a deal with someone who is interested in buying their daughter. Though the couple initially demanded Rs 2 lakh, later they settled for Rs 1.5 lakh. 

According to police, Manoj and Kavitha reached Vadapalani on Saturday and were staying in a hotel. Upon receiving a tip off about the deal, a police team rushed to the hotel and secured the child and later handed her over to the child welfare officials. Police booked Manoj and the broker Mahesh for child trafficking and remanded them in judicial custody. 

Police are investigating to ascertain who wanted to buy the child and whether there was any child trafficking gang behind the incident. Police sources also that Mahesh was not a professional child broker and only mediated the deal between Manoj and the buyer. 

In September last year, police busted a child trafficking gang which canvassed a mother of a just-born at Egmore Government Children Hospital and kidnapped the infant to Salem. Three women, including a fake lawyer were arrested and the kid was rescued from a house in Salem and reunited with her mother.