Continuing to put pressure on the government to get the two children now in the Norwegian Child Care Service custody back to India, the grandparents of the toddlers met Foreign Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna on Tuesday.
“Mr. Krishna assured us that our children would be brought home at any cost,” Manotosh Chakraborty, grandfather of the two children — Abhigyan and Aishwarya — told reporters after the meeting.
The two sets of grandparents were accompanied by Brinda Karat, Polit Bureau member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist).
Earlier, the family members, accompanied by Ms. Karat, Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj and others, staged a sit-in near the Norwegian embassy here.
“We are committed and determined that we will bring back the children home at any cost,” Ms. Karat quoted Mr. Krishna as saying.
Mr. Chakraborty said they were satisfied with their meeting and hoped some “positive” results would emerge.
“This is the first time that the government has sent a special envoy abroad in connection with such a case and we feel optimistic.”
During the interaction, the Minister said talks held between the special envoy Secretary (West) Madhusudhan Ganapathy and Norwegian authorities have been “positive,” and they should wait till the envoy returns to get the details.
Ms. Karat said the grandparents would end the sit-in only after the government tells them officially that the children would be handed over to the family.
She said the parents had appealed to the higher court in Norway against the judgment of the lower court which ruled that the children were to be in that country till they turned 18.
“So in appeal against that, we want to make sure the child protection services there come to an agreement,” she said.
The two children were taken into custody by the Norwegian child welfare officials in May last year on the ground that the parents, Sagarika and Anurup Bhattacharya, were negligent.
