An Indian woman has been jailed for seven
years after she was caught red handed at a London hotel, trying to sell
her 11-month-old baby girl to a childless couple for 35,000 pounds.
The woman was accompanied by a Pakistani businessman, who acted as a
middleman to get the deal done after promising to change the name of
the child with a fake birth certificate, the Daily Mail reports. To their least expectations, the couple waiting for them at the Viking Hotel in Stratford, east London, were undercover reporters, and police were monitoring the whole act from the next room.
The deal was struck after a series of phone conversations were tapped.
The businessman was jailed for nine years by the Inner London Crown Court.
Both the mother and the businessman were convicted of 'child cruelty and slavery' over the fake adoption for profit.
"Slavery involves exercising over a person any or all of the rights of ownership.
No-one, not even a parent, is allowed to own another person," prosecutor Christopher Foulkes told the jury.
However, the woman's 31-year-old husband, who was not the baby's father, was cleared of involvement in the conspiracy.
The plot was revealed after the businessman told one of his associates that there was a 'baby for sale', but the latter informed the media. The organisation later arranged a fake couple to expose the plan. (ANI)
