A newborn baby was sold on Facebook by his grandfather for 800,000 rupees, or about $14,800.
Firoz Khan, 47, sold his grandson through a child trafficking ring and told his daughter, the baby's mother that the child had died.
Police say the child trafficking ring included a hospital nurse and a laboratory technician, according to the Hindustan Times.
Firoz and a nurse, Sunita, stole the baby from the hospital, with Gupreet Singh, a hospital lab technician, acting as the middleman in the sale. They sold the baby to Amit Kumar, a businessman based in New Delhi. The entire deal was arranged through the social networking site Facebook, with arrangements for Kumar to pay 800,000 rupees after seeing photographs of the baby.
The mother of the child, Noori, gave birth at Satyam Hospital on Shingar Cinema Road in Ludhiana on April 3. The hospital employees took the baby on April 10, telling Noori the child was ill, according to the Daily Mail.
Noori became suspicious about the situation when people showed up at their home to pay her father. She reported her missing baby to the police, who launched an investigation, tracking the child to Kumar's home in New Delhi, and eventually, to Sir Gangan Ram hospital, where the baby was being treated for an illness.
"We acted upon the complaint of the mother, who alleged that her child was stolen from the nursing home in Ludhiana," said Ishwar Singh, Ludhiana's Commissioner of Police, to The Telegraph. "After investigations, we found the grandfather of the child had struck a deal with a man in New Delhi and had roped-in the nursing staff to smuggle the baby out of the nursing home.
"We have arrested four people, including the grandfather," Ludhiana said. "We have also booked the buyer from Delhi."
According to the grandfather, his reason for selling the baby was to arrange a second marriage for his daughter, who separated from her husband in February.
"So he thought he should get rid of the child of his daughter from her first husband by selling him off," Singh said.
Child trafficking is a large problem rampant throughout India. Thousands of children are trafficked every year, for adoption, forced labor and sexual slavery, according to the Hindu Business Line.
This case was the first such case reported to have taken place with the involvement of social media, in this instance, Facebook.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
