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Thursday, April 25, 2013

Baby Sold On Facebook: Baby Recovered, Five Arrested

By Susan Duclos

A man in India tells his daughter her baby was born dead, then takes that baby and sells the infant on Facebook, according to report from Yahoo India News on Wednesday, April 24, 2013.

A police raid on the businessman's home Tuesday resulted in the child's recovery; police have since arrested five people involved in the deal, including the grandfather and one other unnamed individual accused of facilitating the sales.

Police say this case is the tip of a very big iceberg of child-trafficking; estimates indicate that tens of thousands of children are trafficked each year out of India alone.

This is, however, the first known instance of a social networking site being used to facilitate this deal.

Via The Examiner, the baby had been sold twice before.

Believe it or not, some reports state that the baby was sold twice before the final deal was agreed upon on Facebook.

The child, born in a Ludhiana hospital, was sold on Facebook by the infant's grandfather. He actually told his daughter that the baby was stillborn, but then sold the child to a nurse for Rs 45,000.

From there, the nurse took the child to a hospital attendant and sold the baby for Rs 300,000. At that point, the hospital attendant put the child up for sale one more time and sold the baby on Facebook.
Facebook is where the businessman, based out of Delhi, finished off the sale to take "ownership" of the infant.

Words fail.