Hyderabad woman sells infant for Rs 45,000; arrested

Naveen S Garewal 

Tribune News Service 

Hyderabad, August 12

Desperate for money after facing financial difficulties on account of an addiction to alcohol, a woman in the city sold her two-month old son Sheikh Adnan for Rs 45,000 with the help of a middleman. The police have arrested Shaikh Zoya Khan along with the middleman. 

The police said incident came to light when woman’s husband Abdul Mujahed complained about their missing child on return from outside the state. He told the police that the couple frequently had fights over the woman’s alcohol addiction. After one such fight on August 3, the husband left for his parent’s house.

On return five days later, he could not find his son, on repeatedly questioning the wife she admitted that she had sold off the child for Rs 45,000 to Shaik Mohammad and Tabassum Begum, who reside at Aghapura, Hyderabad. 

When Mujahed contacted the couple over the phone, they said they had sold off the child to another woman, Ayesha Jabeen, at Chanchalguda. When threatened, they promised to get the child back but started avoiding him. They also did not reveal the whereabouts of the child.

Worried over his child’s safety, Mujahed lodged a complaint with police on Tuesday. The police immediately swing into action and arrested the child’s mother and the middleman. The police shifted the woman and the middleman to Habib Nagar police station for interrogation and registered a case.

Both Shaikh Zoya Khan and her husband Mujahid are residents of Subhanpura, Nampally area in the city and are not very well to do. Mujahid works as a manager in Daruwala Bar and Restaurant in the city in Errum Manzil Colony. 

The Habeeb Nagar police, after investigation, found that Siraj Begum, a woman from Kalapathar area had sold the baby for Rs 45,000 to a third party. Police arrested six people that led to the recovery of the child, who was then handed over to the father.