11-year-old MP boy sold off by mother; tortured, starved and forcibly converted

Bhopal: A 35-year-old woman who sold her minor son to two carpet weavers for Rs 50,000 has been arrested by police in Madhya Pradesh’s Satna district.

According to a report in Hindustan Times, one Laxmi Chowdhary sold her son Shivam to Guddu and Jahagir Ali in eastern UP’s Mirzapur district two years ago.

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The boy, who was 9 years old then, was tortured, starved, locked up, made to work illegally, forcibly converted to Islam and circumcised. He was given the name Sonu Ali.

Shivam managed to escape his tormentors six months ago and went to the Mirzapur police. The child welfare committee of the district put Shivam alias Sonu in a shelter and then reunited him with his deceased father’s family two months ago.

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“The family reported the matter to the Satna police a week ago. We have lodged a case of human trafficking, child and bonded labour besides forceful religious conversion under the MP Freedom of Religion Act,” Satna additional SP Rameshwar Yadav was quoted as saying.

Apparently, the boy’s mother had started living with another man after the boy had been sold off. She was arrested on Saturday and the statements of her two daughters who live with her, will be recorded to ascertain if they too have suffered abuse.