16 year old girl tries to sell blood in West Bengal to buy a smartphone

Having a smartphone in today's time is a necessity. There are smartphones in every price range- from budget to premium. Smartphone brands offer several phones to choose from under every segment. However, there are instances when people want to own a premium or very expensive phone which can be shown off, but not everyone can afford it. Also, several ecommerce platforms like Amazon and Flipkart offer discounts and exchange offers to make it affordable, but still many still cannot buy smartphones of their choice.

In such situations people sometimes do shocking things to get what they want. And in a similar kind of a situation, a teenager from Bengal opted to sell her blood to get the phone of her choice. According to a report by indiatoday.in, a 16-year-old girl from Bengal’s Dinajpur who is a class 12 student ordered a smartphone worth Rs. 9000 online but due to the shortage of money, she decided to sell her blood to arrange the amount.

"A student of class 12, the girl is a resident of Karda of Tapan police station area in a South Dinajpur. She had ordered a smartphone worth ₹9,000 online but found it quite difficult to arrange for the hefty sum. So, she decided to reach the district hospital in Balurghat and sell her blood in exchange for the money," the report said.

The incident came under observation by the hospital staff after the 16 year old demanded money in exchange for her blood. Speaking to India Today, a blood bank employee named Kanak Das said that they got suspicious when the girl demanded money in exchange for donating blood. After this the hospital staff informed the same to the child care department.

The child care department reached the hospital and made an enquiry of the incident. "According to child care member Rita Mahto, when asked about the reason, the girl said that the phone was getting delivered soon, so she came up with the idea of selling blood to raise the money," The report informed.