LAHORE
Shalimar Police on Friday arrested a man who sold his 15-day-old son for Rs 31,000 “owing to financial problems”, Pakistan Today has learnt.
Jameel, the father-in-law of the accused Shabbir, said that his daughter Abida gave birth to a boy, who was named Tauseef, a month ago. He said that Shabbir was unemployed for a long time and on the day of the incident he took his son somewhere and returned home without him. He later told Abida that he had sold Tauseef for Rs 31,000.
Jameel said that soon afterwards, Shabbir ran to his native village Jagli near Gujrat, adding that he and Abida followed him and got him arrested. In police custody, Shabbir confessed selling Tauseef to an alleged child trafficker Bhola, he said, adding that Bhola told police he had sold the child to someone else.
“The police recovered the child from the purchaser’s custody but were forced by the locals to first return the man’s money and then hand over the child to his family,” Jameel said, adding that he had to return the money to the purchaser to get the custody of his grandchild.
Jamil said that Shabbir apologised for his action but a week later he again tried to escape with Tauseef, adding that this time the family was able to prevent the abduction. Shabbir admitted to police that he had sold his son “due to financial problems”.
Abida suspects that her husband Shabbir is involved in the mysterious disappearances of her son Nabeel and daughter Zainab, ages 7 and 5 respectively. She fears that he may have sold them to someone like Bhola.
