Kovai man among 6 jailed for selling 1-yr-old daughter

More than 11 years after a one-year-old female baby was sold to a couple from Kanniyakumari for ₹2.25 lakh, a court on Wednesday sentenced six persons, including the child’s father from Coimbatore, to 10 years of rigorous imprisonment (RI).
K. Sivakumar, Chief Judicial Magistrate, Coimbatore, awarded the punishment to G. Raman (38) and R. Kumarasamy (66) from Sowripalayam in Coimbatore, M. Thangasamy (51), C. Reetha (46), C. Vijayakumar (59) and his wife V. Raniprabha (49) from Kanniyakumari.
As per the prosecution case, Raman took his wife and three daughters, including the one-year-old child, to Kanniyakumari on the pretext of a trip on July 28, 2015.
His friend Kumarasamy accompanied
them.
After reaching Kanniyakumari, Raman offered to take care of the one-year-old child and gave money to his wife for shopping for her and for elder daughters.
As the woman and daughter returned after shopping, he told them that the child was missing. The couple returned to Coimbatore after
searching. The Peelamedu police registered a case and launched an investigation after the child’s mother grew suspicious about her daughter’s disappearance and lodged a complaint. Investigations revealed that the trip to Kanniyakumari was a plot to sell the baby.
Kumarasamy had introduced Raman to Thangasamy, a middleman from Nagercoil, who had found a childless couple as a buyer through Reetha, a nurse from Nagercoil.
The police found that the child was sold to Vijayakumar and Raniprabha of Thengapattinam in Kanniyakumari for ₹2.25 lakh.