Newborn Baby Sold on Facebook for 800,000 Rupees: Grandfather Lies to Daughter About Stillborn Baby for Wealth in India

A newborn baby boy, born on April 3, in Ludhiana, India is alleged to have been abducted by his grandfather, with the help of a hospital nurse, and sold to a businessman on Facebook.

The child's grandfather, Feroze Khan, told his daughter, that the baby had been stillborn, however, the mother became suspicious of her father's new found wealth and filed a complaint with the police, according to NDTV.

Police told the station that during the preliminary investigations the grandfather revealed, that since his daughter had been deserted by her husband, he wanted to arrange her second marriage.  

"So he thought he should get rid off the child of her daughter from her first husband by selling him off," said  Ishwar Singh, Ludhiana Commissioner of Police, according to NDTV.

The grandfather had initially wanted his daughter, who had divorced her husband last year, to abort the child, but since the doctors advised against medical termination of the pregnancy in its last stages, he decided to sell off the child on the advise of his friend Irfan, the police said, according to Punjab Newsline.

The grandfather sold the baby to a nurse who sold him to Gurpreet Singh, a lab technician, who then posted a photo of the 3-day-old child on Facebook and received an offer from businessman, Amit Kumar, to purchase the newborn, according to the Inquisitr.

Kumar, from Delhi, was caught in his attempt to buy the baby for 800,000 rupees, which is equivalent to approximately $14,749, according to the Inquisitr.

After police figured out what had happened, they tracked down and arrested the grandfather, the businessman and both of the hospital employees who initially purchased the newborn child, the Inquisitr reports.

Kumar had paid an initial sum of 75,000 rupees for the child before his arrest, Punjab Newsline reports.

The police acted on the complaint by the mother and managed to rescue the newborn from Kumar in Delhi and were able to return him to his mother, according to Punjab Newsline.