A poverty-stricken single mother in India sold her new-born son to a childless couple for 6,000 rupees (120 dollars) so she could pay her medical bill, a media report said Tuesday. The 20-year-old woman, Rajitha, delivered the baby by Caesarean section last week in the town of Kothagudem in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, but could not afford the 2,000 rupee (40 dollar) hospital fee, the NDTV news channel reported.
A rickshaw driver friend gave her 6,000 rupees for the baby, which he planned to raise with his wife. The couple have no children. Police interrogated the woman in the local hospital, 270 kilometres (170 miles) from the state capital Hyderabad, where she told them her husband had abandoned her and she had no means to support herself and a baby.