JOIN USNRI kids return from Norway
Three-year-old Abhigyan and his one-year-old sister Aishwarya on Tuesday returned to India from Norway, where their NRI parents – with support from Indian government – had to fight a prolonged custody battle with the Nordic country’s child welfare agency Barnevernet.
As the children landed in Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport with their paternal uncle Arunabhas Bhattacharya, External Affairs Minister S M Krishna thanked his Norwegian counterpart Jonas Gahr Store and said that the toddlers belonged to India.
The protracted legal battle ended on Monday, when a court in the Norwegian city of Stavanger handed over the children’s custody to their paternal uncle Arunabhas.
“I am very happy that I have been able to return to India with the children. It is a huge responsibility and I am happy that I have been entrusted with this responsibility,” Arunabhas told journalists at the IGI airport.
“I thank the government of Norway and in particular the foreign minister for his constructive approach in resolving this humanitarian issue. I wish to congratulate the judicial system in Norway for taking such an enlightened decision. All is well that ends well,” said Krishna. “The two governments have been working very closely and constructively in solving the case. It illustrates the good relationship between the two countries,” said Norway’s Ambassador to India, Ann Ollestad. Minister of State for External Affairs Preneet Kaur and the paternal grandparents of Aishwarya and Abhigyan – Ajay and Krishna Bhattacharya – were at the IGI airport to welcome the children.
“We are very happy. We have been waiting for this day for so many months. We are grateful to the government for its sustained and effective intervention,” said Ajay Bhattacharya.
The custody battle between the children’s parents – Anurup and Sagarika Bhattacharya – and Barnevernet turned into a diplomatic row between Norway and India, with New Delhi issuing several strongly-worded demarches to Oslo stressing that the children should be allowed to return to their country and be brought up in “their own ethnic, religious cultural and linguistic milieu”.
Barnevernet had taken away the kids from Bhattacharyas in May 2011 and put them in foster care, citing by Norway's Child Welfare Services in May last year on grounds of “emotional disconnect” and negligence by parents.