THIRUVANANTHAPURAM The Kerala Child Welfare Committee on Thursday ordered authorities to produce the child of former Students Federation of India (SFI) leader Anupama S Chandran that was given up for adoption by her family against her wishes.
The committee, a quasi-judicial body, also told the Kerala State Council for Child Welfare, the nodal agency for adoption in the state, to get DNA tests conducted to confirm the baby’s biological parents.
The baby was reportedly given to a couple in Andhra Pradesh in August without the mother’s consent. A deputy superintendent of police will be in charge of the safety of the child during travel from Andhra Pradesh, it ordered.
An official of the state child welfare council later said the baby’s foster parents have agreed to co-operate with the ongoing investigation. Once the baby is back in Kerala, the child will be under protection of a senior official provided for in the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015, until a final decision is made, the committee said in its order.
Anupama Chandran, who is on a stand-in protest outside the office of the state council of child welfare for the past week, welcomed the decision but said she will continue her protest till officials who allegedly colluded with her parents are punished.
{{/usCountry}}Anupama Chandran, who is on a stand-in protest outside the office of the state council of child welfare for the past week, welcomed the decision but said she will continue her protest till officials who allegedly colluded with her parents are punished.
{{/usCountry}}“It is a good development and I wish it should not happen to any mother. I will continue my fight till action is taken against the guilty officials who flouted norms,” she said.
Her protest has` embarrassed the ruling Communist Party of India (Marxist) and led to appeals to chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan to intervene. The chief minister has so far adopted a hands-off approach, a move in sync with the CPM line that Chandran’s protests and the controversy around her child’s adoption were essentially a family matter. The party did, however, remove her father CS Jayachandran, a senior leader of the CPM’s trade union wing CITU, from all party posts in view of the kidnapping charges filed against him by his daughter.
On October 20, Anupama Chandran filed a police complaint against her parents, alleging that they took away her newborn last year and given it up for adoption despite her opposition. She alleged that her parents opposed her relation with her husband K Ajith since he belonged to a Dalit family.
Her father has insisted that he has her daughter’s written consent for the adoption. Chandran, however, countered that her father forced her to sign the document under duress and that the baby was given for adoption in connivance with the state council of child welfare officials.