The Gujarat child rights panel yesterday sought a report from the civil administration and the police about steps taken by a Jain couple, who are embracing monkhood today, to secure their three-year-old daughter’s future.
The Madhya Pradesh-based Jain couple — Sumit Rathore and his wife Anamika — had last week announced their decision to become monks under the Shwetambar (white-clad) order of their religion and leave behind their daughter and renounce property “worth Rs. 100 crore”.
The deeksha (initiation) ceremony will take place at Surat under Sadhumargi Jain Acharya Ramlal Maharaj, their family members said in Surat yesterday. However, concerned about the future of the couple’s child, a person had recently filed a query under the Right to Information Act with the Gujarat State Commission for Protection of Child Rights (GSCPCR), its chairperson Jagruti Pandya said. “Through the RTI application, a person sought to know from us what will happen to the child if the couple become monks,” she said.
Since the ceremony is being held in Surat, the police commissioner and the collector have been asked to find out what steps the couple have taken for their daughter’s future and give a report to the GSCPCR, Jagruti Pandya said. While most of the couple’s family members who have arrived in Surat remained tight-lipped about the fate of the child, some others told reporters that the couple’s family members will take care of the child.
Anamika’s father Ashok Chandaliya, former Neemuch district president of the BJP, had last week said he would take care of his granddaughter. “I am not against my daughter Anamika becoming a nun,” he had said. Sumit’s father Rajendra Singh, who runs a factory that makes gunny bags for packaging cement, had also echoed a similar view.
Sumit had worked in London before managing his family business in Neemuch while his engineer wife Anamika was earlier employed with a mining major. They are married for four years. Sumit’s cousin Sandip Rathore had earlier claimed that Sumit owns properties “running into Rs. 100 crore”. Earlier this year, a Jain teenage boy from Gujarat, who had scored 99.99 percentile in Class 12 Commerce examination, took the vow of monkhood.
