Sagarika and Anurup Bhattacharya, expatriate couple whose children were taken away from them by the Norwegian Child Welfare Services, will meet them on Friday.
“It has been over three months that I have not seen my children. I am really looking forward to seeing them,” Ms. Bhattacharya, mother of three-year-old Abhigyan and one-year-old Aishwarya, told The Hindu over telephone from Stavenger in Norway on Thursday.
The couple will meet the children along with Arunabhash Bhattacharya, younger brother of Mr. Anurup Bhattacharya, to whom the Norwegian authorities have agreed to hand over the children.
At present, the children are living with separate foster care families and the couple have been allowed to visit them twice a year.
Ms. Bhattacharya said the Norwegian authorities had sent an email to her brother-in-law stating that Abhigyan continued to bang his head on the floor and spit when he is at kindergarten.
“When they had taken my son away from me they had pointed out this behaviour — banging his head on the ground and spitting — and said that we are not raising our children properly. Now our children have been kept away from us for so many months and according to the evaluation of the Child Welfare Services, he is still banging his head on the ground and spitting,” she said, adding that the Norwegian authorities had “repeatedly tried to prove that we were at fault.”
Mr. Arunabhash Bhattacharya, who met the children last week, told the couple that Abhigyan was traumatised. He was wailing, demanding that he be taken to his mother.
Ms. Bhattacharya said that she was excited over the prospects of meeting her son. “I am also very happy that I will be able to meet my daughter as I have little information on how she is doing,” Ms. Bhattacharya added.
