Why isn't it "had handed" in "the girl alleged that her mother handed her over"?

The news story of the TOI in question was told in the Simple Past Tense. If the reporting verb of a direct speech sentence is in the simple past tense and the sentence is changed into indirect or reported speech, normally there should be a back-shifting of the tense of verbs of the direct speech sentence. If the OP's sentence is assumed to be a reported speech sentence, its direct speech version should have been as follows:

The girl alleged, "My mother hands me over to a pimp and is taking Rs 40,000 from him every month".