In the case of the three-year-old child of Indian parents taken into custody by the authorities in Oregon, the Washington County District Attorney’s (DA) office said that the father, who was earlier, arrested and bailed out, would face an arraignment hearing on a criminal indictment.
The news from the DA’s office, which was conveyed via email to The Hindu , came even as the mother expressed distress after being left to fend for herself and her two young sons after her husband was banned from contacting them since his arrest on July 23.
Meanwhile, the Indian diplomatic mission in San Francisco has been regularly in touch with the mother, and offered a range of options for assistance, including facilitating legal aid, which she has thus far been unable to procure, and the Consul General, Ambassador Venkatesan Ashok has expressed his intention to extend further assistance.
It remains unclear whether the Ministry of External Affairs has brought up the case with the U.S. Department.
The Indian couple also fear that if the father, who has been charged with assault in the third degree and criminal mistreatment in the first degree, has one or more of these charges on his permanent record he risks losing both his green card and his job with a major tech firm, and this could leave the Indian family facing the risk of deportation or involuntary relocation to India.
The couple’s woes began on February 6 2015, when their older son was playfully trying to climb upon his father’s back and may have slipped off and landed hard, leading to a hairline fracture in the child’s left tibia.
When the mother mentioned to doctors that her husband may have “dropped” the child, her son was rushed to Randall Children's Hospital at Legacy Emanuel in Portland, which has a specialist Child Abuse Assessment Team on call and from there on social service workers from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and even the local police took over, leading to a ban on the husband from contacting the family.
Fast-forward a few months to June and the couple had been compelled to attend a regular regimen of parental counselling sessions in their home, including “family skill-building” sessions and “anger management” therapy for the father, and psychological counselling for the mother.
Despite their complete compliance with HHS demands and the prospect of HHS closing the file on their case, at the insistence of Kevin Barton of the DA’s office, matters suddenly escalated in July.
This saw the mother subsequently being subpoenaed to attend court as a witness against her husband for an alleged felony he committed against his son; a hearing in a Juvenile Court, where the judge ruled that the father could have contact with the children and it was the mother who was “mentally sick;” a grand jury, which found the husband guilty on charges of assault in the third degree and criminal mistreatment in the first degree; and ultimately the father was arrested and then bailed out on a bond of $1,000.
The mother said that she has during this time faced numerous threats from HHS or other officials that the family would face further consequences if they did not comply with the authorities’ demands, including continual monitoring of the household by HHS workers and a requirement that both her children face assessment sessions in August to determine whether they have been mentally incapacitated by their upbringing.