The police in India arrested a West Bengal mother after learning that she and her husband had sold their baby to buy an iPhone, the Indian Express reported Friday. Police also arrested the woman who purchased the baby.
Jaydev and Sathi Ghosh, from the city of Barrackpore, West Bengal, allegedly sold their eight-month-old son to Priyanka Ghosh, per the Indian Express news report. Local residents reportedly raised an alarm to the police upon noticing that the couple had a brand new iPhone, that their baby was missing and that they had not filed a missing person report with the police, per the outlet.
The police were able to rescue the child from the alleged buyer, but the baby’s father fled, triggering an ongoing manhunt, the Express noted. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: Sen. Marsha Blackburn Introduces Resolution Promoting Awareness Of Human Trafficking)
In a shocking incident from West Bengal, a couple reportedly sold their 8-month-old baby to purchase an iPhone for creating Instagram reels. The bizarre story comes from West Bengal’s North 24 Parganas district.
The West Bengal police have successfully apprehended the baby’s… pic.twitter.com/2KfN83JKuF
— IndiaToday (@IndiaToday) July 27, 2023
“After interrogation, the mother admitted to the crime and informed that she and her husband wanted to use the money to take trips across the state so that they could create content for Instagram reels,” a senior official from the Barrackpore police commissioner said, per the news report.
The couple also have a seven-year-old daughter, who police say the father also attempted to sell, the outlet noted.
There have been several reports of child trafficking in India in recent years. A man, Manjinder Singh, and his wife Parwinder Kaur were arrested in February for allegedly trying to pass off another child as a twin of their own child, per a separate Indian Express news report. Six people were arrested and charged with selling babies to childless couples after police broke up a trafficking ring in Mumbai in 2017.