Krishna seeks report on custody row involving Indians in US

New Delhi, Sept 10: External Affairs Minister

today sought a report from the Indian mission on US child service authorities in New Jersey restricting an Indian couple access to their one-year-old son after he underwent surgery for an injury.

Official sources said that Krishna has sought a report from the mission on the US-based Indian couple, hailing from Balurghat in West Bengal, being given limited access by American authorities to their son. Nirmal and Sonarani Saha, the grandparents of the child Indrasish, had said yesterday that he fell from the bed on Aug 9 at the couple's New Jersey home when his mother Pamela was cooking and his father Debashis was in office.

Indrashish was immediately rushed to a state-owned hospital where he was admitted by doctors and underwent a surgery, Nirmal Saha had said. After Indrasish got well, his parents wanted to take him home but the hospital authorities refused to hand him over to them as the Child Protection Organisation alleged that the parents had failed to take proper care of him, the grandfather said.

He said he has appealed to the President, the Prime Minister and the West Bengal Chief Minister for help, and added that his son Debashis rang up Panchayat minister Subrata Mukherjee and appealed for help.

Mukherjee told Debashis that he would take up the matter with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

Earlier in May, two Indian infants in Norway were taken into foster care by Child Protection Service there alleging that their mother Sagarika was unfit to take care of two-and-half-year-old Abhigyan and five-month-old Aishwarya. The two infants were subsequently sent to India in the custody of their uncle Arunabhas Bhattacharya.

PTI