A grandmother who has been struggling with poverty and had to undergo surgery for cancer recently, has been booked by the police for abandoning her five-year-old granddaughter whom she had been raising since infancy.
According to the Namdong police in Incheon, the 57-year-old woman took the child to the Incheon Express Bus Terminal Dec. 14 and boarded a bus headed for Cheongju, North Chungchong Province.
Upon arrival, she took the child to a traditional market, bought her a pair of socks and told her to wait while she gets some snacks. Then she returned to Incheon alone.
Merchants in the market contacted the police as the child cried while waiting for her grandmother and was later placed under protective custody in a welfare facility.
Upon returning home, the grandmother called her son-in-law, lying that she lost the child in a nearby traditional market.
The son-in-law immediately filed a missing person report with the police who were curious why the report was made 12 hours after the child was lost.
Upon being questioned, the grandmother said she was struggling in poverty, with her husband working as a security guard and her son being jobless. The parents of the child divorced and were not providing child support.
The child was placed under the care of her son-in-law.