NRI parents seek govt help as Norwegian authorities take custody of their child

Oslo: A five-year-old child has been separated from his NRI parents by Norwegian authorities who accused them of beating him.

This is the third such case in the last five years.

The boy’s father, Anil Kumar was quoted as saying by The Indian Express - “The Child Welfare Department of Norway took custody of my five-and-a-half-year-old son on December 13, at 9.30 am, from his kindergarten school. They did not give us prior information. At 10 am, the same day, four policemen came to my house, took my wife into custody, and interrogated her from 11.15 am to 2.45 pm."

Kumar, who owns an Indian restaurant, further told the media house - "When we asked for the reason, it was conveyed to us that we had beaten up our son."

Kumar has served as vice president of the Overseas Friends of the BJP in Oslo and migrated from Punjab to Norway about 26 years ago. 

He said that the boy has been sent to a children’s welfare home in Hamar, about 150 km away from Oslo.

He and his wife, Gurvinderjit Kaur, have sought government’s intervention in the matter.

“They interrogated our child for about one-and-a-half hours. They showed us some of those videos. The video shows that when asked whether his parents have loud discussions with each other and if they beat him up, his answer was no. When they asked him whether his grandfather had beaten him up, he became very angry,” Kumar said.

They met their son at the welfare home on Monday.

He told IE - “He was wearing the same clothes and undergarments in which he had gone to school a week ago. He is not receiving proper care from the child welfare department. He hugged us and cried a lot… he is our only child… why would we torture him. He is an active child, and is very fussy about eating… He likes to eat Indian food… he is being given bread and porridge, and has not been eating well. I have never even raised my voice at him, how can I beat him up? His mother spent sleepless nights taking care of him as he is an asthma patient. How can we physically hurt our beloved son. We met the child welfare officials twice, on December 14 and 16. They said they received a complaint from a person."