Casper Anderson, a 43-year-old Danish citizen is a long way from home. He has travelled from Aalborg city, in Denmark, to Linganoor in Coimbatore to trace his family roots.
Born to T. Ayyavu and Saraswati of Linganoor in 1975, Mr. Anderson was put in a children’s home when he was only 30 days old. In 1979, a Danish couple adopted him. “Ever since I came to know that I was adopted, I wanted to know about my biological parents. Before adoption, I was called Raja Kumar,” Mr. Anderson told reporters in Coimbatore on Saturday.
This is the second visit of Mr. Anderson, a graphic designer, to Coimbatore in his attempt to find his biological parents. He approached the media after his efforts did not yield results. He said he spent his early years at the Blue Mountain Children’s Home, Coimbatore, which was run by Mary Catherine and Prakash.
The reason stated in the adoption order was that Mr. Ayyavu could not take care of the child after he suffered a paralytic attack and his wife left him. Based on an order from the district court, a Danish couple, Keld and Birthe Anderson, had adopted the child. A Netherlands-based organisation named Against Child Trafficking (ACT) came forward to help Mr. Anderson.
Trip to Linganoor
In his second visit, Mr. Anderson visited Linganoor with the help of ACT’s executive director Arun Dohle, ACT’s consultant in India Anjali Pawar and members from the Tirupur-based Centre for Social Education and Development. They were told that a person named Ayyavu was living with his mother Mariammal near Karuparayan temple at Linganoor.
Elderly residents said that they had never seen Ayyavu after he sold his property and left the place around 1986.
Though the team attempted to collect documents related to the adoption, nothing could be traced.
“We are doubtful about Mr. Anderson’s ‘adoption’ as he was not an orphan and had his father and grandmother. It could have been a case of child trafficking. Child trafficking has happened on a large scale in the name of adoption in the past when the formalities involved were not considered very seriously by the authorities. The sad fact is that such trafficking is still happening,” said Ms. Pawar.
