Uncle to get Norway NRI children custody

A Bengali couple whose children were taken away by Norway's Childcare Services last year for "not raising them properly" heaved a sigh of relief on Wednesday after it was known that the children will be reportedly handed over to a family member.

The children will be handed over to their uncle, media reports said.

The couple from Kolkata, Anurup and Sagarika Bhattacharya, who are non resident Indian (NRI) citizens, have said that Norway's child protection service Barnevernet took away their two-and-a-half-year-old son Abhigyan and four-month-old daughter Aishwarya on May 11, last year.

The reason cited was that the couple were feeding the children with hands and making them sleep with them in the same bed.

On Nov 30, a court in Norway ruled that the two children will be placed in separate foster homes till they are 18, with their parents, who currently live in Stavangers city, being permitted to meet them only twice in a year for one hour at a time.

The lawyer of the Indian couple reportedly told the Indian Embassy in Oslo that Anurup´s brother will take the custody of the children.

Anurup´s brother is likely to travel to Norway when the much-talked about custody case will be taken up in the court. He would have to give an undertaking in the court and state that he will take complete care of the children.

The agreement over the custody issue will be signed between governments of India, Norway and the parents of the children, media reports said.

Earlier, External Affairs Minister S M Krishna personally meet Norwegian officials on Monday evening over the issue in New Delhi.

Reports said that Krishna was confident that "a reasonable assessment of the situation" can be worked out "at the earliest."

The Indian foreign minister on Sunday had urged the Indian Ambassador in Norway to call on the Norwegian Foreign Minister and pursue the government to hand over children to their parents.

"If at any cost it can´t be done as per their laws, then kids should be sent back to India to their grandparents. It should be treated with utmost seriousness," Kishna was quoted as saying by a TV news channel.

Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI-M) leader Brinda Karat on Saturday had met President Pratibha Patil over the separation of the two children from their Indian parents in Norway after the kids were taken away by the Nordic nation´s child welfare service citing incapability of their parents to take care of them.

Karat was accompanied by the grandparents of the NRI kids.

The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) in a statement on Saturday said: "The matter of the separation of three-year old Abhigyan and one-year old Aishwarya from their natural parents by the Norwegian Childcare Services which placed them under foster care has been pursued actively with Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs after the strong demarches that were made in Oslo and in New Delhi on January 5, 2012."

The MEA said on January 12, an official of the Indian Embassy in Oslo visited the foster home where the young children are staying and ascertained that they were in good health.