This couple who lives in West Bengal, India, have been accused that they were selling their eight-month-old son to buy an iPhone 14 to create Instagram Reels.
The Times of India (TOI) stated that police have arrested the baby’s mother, named only Sathi, while the father, named Jaydev, is on the run.
As per the newspaper’s account, neighbours started to doubt post they realised that the couple’s eight-month-old son was missing, and the two looked too relaxed about it when asked. According to them, they had left the baby with a relative.
Sathi and Jaydev together have a child, a seven-year-old girl.
The neighbours reported they also observed the two out of nowhere having an iPhone 14 and creating Instagram Reels, mostly short, entertaining videos, with it and they were aware that the two could not afford such an expensive smartphone, which cost at least 100,000 rupees (S$1,600) in India.
The neighbours last Saturday brought into notice that a local councillor named Tarak Guha, went to the police to file a report.
The TOI informed that the police later were able to save the baby boy from a woman in Khardaha, also in West Bengal
Additionally, Sathi and Jaydev were also going through drug abuse charges.
The case presents a similar incident back in 2016, when a teenage couple in Fujian province, China, sold their 18-day-old baby for US$3,533 (S$4,700), so they could purchase an iPhone and a motorbike.
The father was later on given a three-year prison term, on the other hand, the mother spent two years in jail.
Xiamen Daily wrote down the mother as saying then: “I was adopted, and in my hometown, many people gave their kids for others to raise. I genuinely didn’t know this was illegal”
