NORWEGIAN social workers, who sparked a diplomatic row by removing two Indian children from their parents, said yesterday they were calling off a deal to place the kids with their uncle in India due to a spat inside the family.
“In light of the great uncertainty that now prevails, the Child Welfare Service cannot maintain that a move to India would be in the best interest of the children,” said Gunnar Toresen, the head of the agency`s local branch in the southwestern Norwegian town of Stavanger.
The two children, aged one and three, were removed from their parents in May last year by the child welfare services, which deemed they were not receiving proper care, but refused to give more details, citing confidentiality.
The parents, Norwegian residents Anurup and Sagarika Bhattacharya, have rejected the allegations and initially claimed on Indian television that Norwegian authorities objected to their feeding the children by hand and sharing the same bed.
Earlier this week however, the father, Anurup, changed his story, telling Indian media: “It was not just cultural bias that prompted the CWS (child welfare service) to act. My wife has a serious psychological problem.”
Anurup, who is now seeking custody of the children, told the Hindu newspaper on March 20 he was speaking out after a row with his wife in which she allegedly attacked him, and that he had “concealed the seriousness” of problems within his family. His wife`s version of events was not given.
A Stavanger court had been set to hold a hearing tomorrow on whether the initial deal to hand custody of the children to their uncle in India was in their best interest, but the child welfare services said the new developments “make it impossible to carry out the hearing”.
