Agencies/New Delhi
The grandparents of two Indian children taken into protective care by Norwegian social workers staged a protest in New Delhi yesterday to demand the children’s immediate return to their parents. “The children are Indian citizens. Norway has no right to keep the children in foster care,” the toddlers’ grandfather Monotosh Chakraborty said outside the Norwegian embassy where he and other relatives began a four-day protest. The case has stirred emotions in India and took on a diplomatic dimension last month when External Affairs Minister S M Krishna demanded that Norway “find an amicable and urgent solution.” India yesterday sent a special envoy to Oslo to meet the Norwegian foreign minister and other officials to discuss the case. Madhusudhan Ganapathi, secretary (west) in the external affairs ministry met Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Store in Oslo.The discussions were positive, official sources said.The two children, aged three and one, were removed from their parents in May last year by the Norway’s Child Protection Services (CPS) which deemed they were not receiving proper care at home in the southwestern town of Stavanger. The parents, Norwegian residents Anurup and Sagarika Bhattacharya, have rejected the allegation and are fighting to return to India with their children. The Indian government has told Norway that the children are being deprived of the benefits of being brought up in their own cultural and linguistic environment and should return to India as soon as possible The grandparents said they were hoping for a final decision in early March. “We want our children back and we need no lessons from Norway on how to raise children,” Chakraborty said. “We just have one plea: Norway send our children home,” he added. On February 17, the Norwegian authorities allowed the parents to see their children for the first time in three months. The welfare services have refused to detail why the children were removed, citing confidentiality, but have said such moves are made only in situations that endanger the child or where the child’s needs are not sufficiently met. The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) joined hands to demand Norway send back the children.Expressing concern over extension of residence permits of the children, BJP leader Sushma Swaraj asked the central government to put pressure on Norway and said her party would raise the issue in the upcoming budget session of parliament.“We will raise the issue in parliament if the children are not reunited with their parents before March 12,” she said while expressing solidarity with the grandparents.“There is no politics involved in this, the whole nation is agitated as they are our children... it is very sad,” she said.CPM leader Brinda Karat said: “The Norway government is working like a law unto themselves. The Indian government should put more pressure on them. The UN has already criticised their law relating to children... This is kidnapping and nothing else.”