A mother has been arrested in India after selling her 11-year-old daughter to pay off a fine

The woman is thought to have sold her daughter for 650,000 rupees - or £7,611 - to settle the fine imposed on her by the council in her home village in the northwestern state of Rajasthan. Police also arrested a couple accused of buying the young girl. The mother told police that she sold her child to pay a fine of 450,000 rupees - or £5,317 - imposed by the council as a penalty for violating a local tradition. The sale came to light when the woman's daughter tried to run away from the couple that bought her from her mother, police in Rajasthan said. The man and woman chased the girl, who managed to get to a restaurant where customers alerted the police. The young girl told officers that she had been beaten by the couple, and claimed that they had planned to sell her on to somebody in Mumbai. Police said that the girl's mother was fined by her village council for backing out of a marriage agreement involving her daughter. She had married off her daughter to a man under a local custom that sees the groom pay the mother for the bride. It is thought that the woman later broke the agreement and took her daughter home. Thousands of children in India fall into the hands of slave traders every year - many sold by their parents.