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BENGALURU: Wracked with guilt over having given away her 53-day-old boy through illegal adoption after finding it difficult to raise him, a 35-year-old assistant professor knocked on the doors of police, pleading that she be reunited with her child.

Police managed to rescue the infant from a Mysuru couple on Thursday and handed him over to the Child Welfare Committee (CWC) in Bengaluru. The birth parents and the man who led them to the Mysuru couple were charged with selling the baby.

Banashankari residents Raksha (name changed) and Suresh (name changed), engineer with a private company, were blessed with a boy on October 23. With no one else to take care of the child, the couple employed domestic helps. But with the workers quitting one by one, the couple struggled to focus at work.

Upset, the couple decided to give away the child to someone in need. They came across a man, Shiv Raj (name changed), who assured them he would solve their problem. Raksha insisted the adoptive parents are childless, educated and financially stable.

On December 13, Shiv phoned the couple and said he had found the right adoptive parents. Around 5pm on December 16, Raksha and Suresh handed over their son to a man, his wife and another senior citizen — who had come in two cars — near Janata Bazaar, Banashankari III Stage. The trio said they would take good care of the child but the couple shouldn’t seek their whereabouts.

After returning home, Raksha began to suffer from guilt pangs. The couple called Shiv on phone, who said he was not aware of the child’s whereabouts. She repeatedly called him but he said he was only a middleman and asked her to file a police complaint.

On Tuesday, Raksha approached CK Achukattu police and filed a complaint. Admitting that she had committed a mistake, she requested cops to trace her child. Incidentally, hers was the last FIR to be booked by city police in 2019.

“Raksha and Suresh are professionals and couldn’t devote enough time to the child. It appears there was no money involved. We have booked the couple and Shiv under sections 80 (any person or organisation offers/gives/receives child without following adoption procedures), 81 (any person who sell/buys child) and 87 (abetment) of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015. We are probing all angles,” a police officer said.

“Raksha keeps changing her statement. All those involved will have to appear before the CWC,” the officer added.

