The Hindu : Who is the real mother?

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Dec 12, 2002

Southern States

Southern States - Kerala-Thiruvananthapuram

Who is the real mother?

By Our Staff Reporter

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM Dec. 11. The case of the girl child who was found in the electronic cradle of the Child Welfare Council got murkier today, with the child responding overwhelmingly towards a nomadic woman who came in search of her, while failing to recognise Sobha from Tiruvalla, the woman who had claimed the child to be her missing daughter.

The authorities at the Child Welfare Council were in a fix on Wednesday with the two women, both claiming the child to be theirs, turning up at the council to meet the child.

Sobha, the woman from Othara in Tiruvalla, had reached the council in the morning, armed with old photographs and a birth certificate, claiming that the child was her daughter Ashwini or Achu, who had been missing for the past one year. Though she broke down and wept on seeing the child, it did not evoke any reaction in the child.

When the child, who has been named Chinnu by the council authorities, was asked to go to her mother, she went straight to Ambika, one of the ayahs who had been taking care of her.

However, the scene was entirely different in the evening when a woman from one of the beggars' groups in the city, Yasoda, tried to meet the child.

The council authorities were absolutely taken aback at the manner in which the child responded to the woman, by rushing towards her and then hugging and kissing her.

Though the nomadic group had approached the council the very next day of the child being found in the cradle, they had not been allowed to see her.

The child, who had so far not spoken much or responded enthusiastically to any adult, even sang a song when Yasoda asked her to. It left no doubts in the minds of anyone that the child knew the woman very well. The child also resisted and bawled loudly when she was taken back to the adoption centre by the ayahs.

Despite the positive response of the child to the nomadic woman, the council authorities are not taking at face value the woman's claims that the child is her own. A child as young as three-and-a-half-years could develop an emotional attachment to anyone who has been with her constantly.

The possibility that the child could have been abducted by the nomadic group from somewhere and was being used for begging purposes could not be discounted.

Sobha had earlier claimed that the child was her eldest daughter, who had been forcefully taken away by her husband, a native of Thane, Mumbai, a year ago, following a quarrel.

She claimed that she had no financial means of going to Mumbai to check on the child and that till she saw the newspaper report, she had firmly believed her child to be safe with her father.

The council authorities have made it clear to both the women that the guardianship of the child could be decided only through legal procedures. The council would provide the necessary legal aid and pay for DNA tests if necessary to find out if either of the women is the child's biological mother.

The council would also seek the help of the Maharashtra State Council for Child Welfare to check out the information given by Sobha. The child will be in the council's care till legal procedures were completed.

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