Delighted with the news that it is only a matter of time before three-year old Abhigyan and one-year-old Aishwarya, who were separated from their parents and put into foster care by the Norwegian Childcare Services last year, are returned to the family, their grandfather, Monotosh Chakraborty said here on Wednesday that he wanted them to return to India at the earliest.
“We are yet to receive any official word on this, but we got the news last night [Tuesday] that they will be returned to the family soon,” Mr. Chakraborty, the father of the children's mother Sagarika Bhattacharya told The Hindu .
Flooded with calls
Flooded with phone calls from well-wishers and journalists, Mr. Chakraborty said that he was “delighted and relieved” when he heard the news and thanked the officials, the media and everyone involved in the efforts to return Abhigyan and Aishwarya to the family.
“After all these many months of uncertainty, I know I will be able to play with my dadu [referring to his grandson]. I will be able to hold my granddaughter in my arms,” he said.
Mr. Chakraborty said that he wanted his daughter and son-in-law to return as soon as they received the custody of Abhigyan and Aishwarya.
“I will tell Anurup and Sagarika to come back immediately,” he said.
‘Bureaucratic apathy'
writes from Bangalore:
“The Norwegian Childcare Services are known to have certain rigid assumptions about the what constitutes the best interest of the child,” says Nomita Chandy, the founder of Ashraya, a Bangalore-based organisation for the welfare women and children, which, until recently, facilitated adoption.
Ms. Chandy, who has overseen several adoptions to Scandinavian countries condemned the Norwegian authorities for separating the children from their biological parents.
“It would have been traumatic for the children, and the parents were not given a chance,” Ms. Chandy told The Hindu .
The decision of the Norwegian authorities to take the children away from the parents under specious claims reflected a bureaucratic indifference that existed worldwide, not the least in India.
