Screen grab from earlier video post of Puja, requesting to bring her back home (Odisha).
Credit: X/@KalingaForum
She claimed that she was in love with a man in Balasore and wanted to return to Odisha.
The woman Puja alias Sejal John (19), after landing at Biju Patnaik International Airport here, said she had made false allegations of torture and forced conversion in order to facilitate her return to Odisha.
"Whatever I had said in the previous video is false. My adoptive mother had never tortured me nor forced me to convert. I had told lies on my own to return to Odisha. I appeal to the US authorities to release my adoptive mother. She is in great trouble over my allegation," she told reporters at the airport.
Puja was brought back to Odisha by the coordinated efforts of the Ministry of External Affairs and the Odisha government after she made an emotional public appeal alleging abuse and forced religious conversion by her American mother.
In her appeal, she had also urged Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi to come to her rescue and facilitate her return.
Asked as to why she made such allegations against her adopted mother, who took her on adoption, raised her and gave her a new life, Puja said: "I was in love with a man in Balasore in Odisha and therefore wanted to return to the state. My visa had also expired since 2023. This is the reason why I made false allegations against my adoptive mother."
Puja was adopted by a woman from America in 2018.
In her earlier video post, Puja had requested the Odisha Chief Minister to bring her back home. "I am tortured a lot here. I want to return to Odisha and find my real parents," she said.
Puja had also alleged that she was being forced to do too many household chores.
Police sources said that Puja was born in 2006 and got separated from her biological parents while travelling in a train outside the state. She was rescued by Childline and brought to Odisha.
She was initially put up at Nilagiri in Balasore, and then at a Kanya Ashram at Naharkanta in Bhubaneswar, from where she was adopted by the American woman seven years ago, police said.
Police sources also said that she had come in contact with the boy, with whom she had studied in school, in 2023 through social media.
Puja was present in police custody and was being taken to Balasore.