Nanny rents out baby to beggars

Bengaluru
Nov. 4: This nanny was more Fagin than Mary Poppins.
A young couple in the city who hired a nanny to look after their baby while they were at work discovered that she had hired out the child to be used for begging on the streets.

Ms Anamika Joshi, an MBA graduate and a consultant with an MNC, discovered by chance that her seven-month-old baby boy was being hired out to beggars for Rs 100 a day. She left returned home early from work one day and found the nanny watching TV while her son was missing.

When Ms Joshi questioned the nanny, she confessed that she had been giving the baby to beggars for three weeks. “What my baby was put through sends shivers down my spine. I can’t imagine what would have happened if I had not returned home early that day,” said Ms Joshi.

She and her husband also realised why the baby had appeared to be drowsy lately. “We took him to a doctor, who surprisingly did not find anything wrong with the child. We later learned that our baby was given oral sedatives by the beggars,” she said.

Although the nanny was thrown out, no police complaint was lodged against her with the couple seeing no point in pursuing the matter. “I have my baby and I will never put him in such a situation again,” says Ms Joshi. The couple has decided to rely on their parents, who have agreed to live with them to take care of the baby.

Child rights activists say such incidents could be more common than people realise, with offenders getting away as the laws do not prescribe severe punishment for them.