India on Tuesday hardened its stance and demanded that the child which was taken away from its Indo-Norwegian parents by the Norwegian authorities should be reunited with them.
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said the child’s current caregivers, foster parents, were ‘ignorant’ about the Indian culture and he should therefore be restored to his parents.
“I refuse to accept that foster parents can take better care of the child than the natural parents. We want restoration of Aryan to his natural parents. This is our firm stand and the Indian Ambassador will convey this to the Norwegian authorities,” Ms. Swaraj said on Twitter.
Senior BJP leader Vijay Jolly, who took up the case on the social media 14 days ago, said the Indian Embassy in Norway had assured him that the Norwegian authorities had been officially informed of Ms. Swaraj’s position on the case. “The Indian Ambassador has assured me that they are pursuing the case. So far it appears that the Norwegian authorities failed to understand the Indian ways in which parents bring up a child,” Mr. Jolly said, dismissing Norwegian allegations of mistreating the child. However, Norway has maintained that it will deal with the case according to its child welfare rules.
According to a Norwegian Embassy spokesperson in Delhi, “Norwegian authorities have reiterated that child welfare cases are handled in accordance with the Norwegian Child Welfare Act, which includes directions from the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child.”
The child’s father, Anil Kumar Sharma, has long term association with Mr. Jolly and (Overseas Friends of BJP) OFBJP. Last week, the MEA had stated that it was fully prepared to engage with local authorities to impress upon them the “humanitarian aspect” of the case.
(With agency inputs)
