E-Paper
'Wish to be close to my daughters': Father of Russian woman's kids found in Karnataka cave
Dror Goldstein, an Israeli national, has expressed his desire to share custody of the kids with Nina Kutina, the woman who was found living in a cave.
Days after a Russian woman was found living inside a cave with her two daughters in Karnataka's Gokarna district, the children's father has come forward, saying he wishes to be close to them.
Dror Goldstein, an Israeli national, has expressed his desire to share custody of the kids with Nina Kutina, the Russian woman who was found living in a cave with her daughters a few days ago.
"My wish is to be close to my two daughters. I demand shared custody. I want to be able to meet them, to be close to them and to be a father. That's all," Goldstein told news agency PTI.
It was earlier reported that the Russian woman told authorities that the father of her children is an Israeli businessman, and that she gave birth to one of the daughters when she lived in a cave in Goa.
According to an Indian Express report, Nina met the Israeli citizen a few years ago, the two fell in love and had Preya (6) and Ama (4), their two daughters.
The Foreigners Regional Registration Office (FRRO) reportedly got in touch with the father, the publication had reported, adding that getting Nina and her children deported to Russia would take about one month.
While her discovery from inside a cave stunned many, Nina Kutina has defended the move, saying her family “loves nature”, and that she has lived in forests of over 20 countries in the past 15 years.
"My children were all born in different places. I delivered all of them myself, without hospitals or doctors, because I know how to do it. No one helped me, I did it alone,” she was quoted as saying by news agency PTI.
According to a New York Times report, Nina came to India many years ago with her two sons and a daughter. Her eldest son died aged 21, and it is unknown where her other son is.
Her business visa expired in 2017 and she has overstayed ever since, owing to what she describes as “several complicated reasons”.
“First, there were multiple personal losses - not just the death of my son, but also a few other close people. We were constantly dealing with grief, paperwork, and other problems,” she told PTI.
Nina and her daughters were found residing in a hidden cave in Gokarna on July 11 during a routine inspection by the police.
The Russian woman, who has since been rescued, describes her present life as “uncomfortable”, and says she lived in the cave “peacefully”.
