Araria, Bihar:
A woman accused of selling her four-month-old baby for Rs 62 has gone missing a day after her story made the headlines. Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has said the incident has made him anxious. He said he has asked the police to handle the matter sensitively and will try to ensure that his administration is able to find and help her.
Shannu Khatun, who is from Bihar's Araria district, and is in her mid-30s, was reported to have sold one of her newborn twins- both boys - to a Nepalese couple at Forbesganj railway station, near the India-Nepal border in Araria, about 350 kilometres from Patna. She denied the reports, insisting that she had given away her son in an informal adoption because she could not support her physically challenged husband, her eight-year-old daughter and the new twins.
"Khatun has disappeared from the railway station, police have been trying to trace her whereabouts," Araria's Superintendent of Police Shivdeep Lande said. He added,"She may be hiding, fearing police action. But the police is keen to help her to recover her child."
He said he has directed the local police and and asked the Railway Protection Force to look for Khatun. It was Khatun's daughter who allegedly told Mr Lande and others that her baby brother had been sold.
Khatun, along with her children, left her village a few days ago and took shelter at the Forbesganj railway station. Police officials suspect that Khatun was forced to leave the railway station by railway authorities in view of the embarrassment caused to them by media reports. Syed Ahsan Ali of the Railway Protection Force said Khatun had told him that she had not been paid for her baby.
According to district police officials, a police team that travelled to her village today could not find her.