Child 'adopted' for Tk 42,000 is returned to mother by police

A woman gave her one-and-a-half-month-old child up for adoption for Tk 42,000 in Gazipur’s Sreepur Upazila. Police later returned the child to the mother as no legal process was followed.

She was forced to place her son for adoption due to poverty as ‘Tuhin’, the father of the child, refused to recognise it, the mother claimed.

Narail resident Saddam Hossain, a technician in a local cable factory who was also a tenant at Abdar village in Telihati, adopted the child, police said on Tuesday.

The child's mother, a resident of Mymensingh’s Fulbaria Upazila, lives in a rented house in the same village.

She gave her son to the childless Saddam for adoption in exchange for money by signing a stamp, said Abu Raihan, sub-inspector of Sreepur Police Station.

“As the matter is not legally endorsed, the money has been refunded [to Saddam] and the child returned to the mother.”

The mother said she met Tuhin five years ago and got married against the family's wishes. But their marriage was not registered. They lived as husband and wife.

This was Tuhin's second marriage and his first wife lives at his home. So Tuhin did not take her there. Rather they lived in a rented house in the same area, the mother said.

Meanwhile, she got pregnant and Tuhin left for Saudi Arabia nearly seven months ago without informing her.

Since then, she said she had not heard from him.

“I am childless in my 10 years of married life. I took the boy to raise him as I have no children,” Saddam said.

“As the child's mother had no national ID card, I took the boy by signing stamps in the presence of some locals.”