Scars of Norway nightmare yet to fade, say Sagarika’s parents

The Indian Express has chosen to withhold the names of the children and grandparents to protect their identity.

“Our struggle is on. It is far from over. Our grandson still gets night terrors. He is on medication and gets counseling. Our granddaughter is doing well but he is yet to get over the trauma,” she said.

The boy was nearly 3 years old and the girl around 1 when they were moved to foster care by the Barnevernet, Norway’s child protection services, over allegations of ‘improper parenting’, which included sleeping in the same bed as the children, hand feeding, which was seen by the Norwegian authorities as force-feeding, and corporal punishment, since Sagarika had allegedly slapped the children once.

“He was old enough to understand that they [the Barnevernet] were taking him away from his mother. The children spent one year in a foster home in Norway. In India, they spent nearly a year with their paternal family in another district of West Bengal because custody was given to Anurup’s brother. We filed a court case to get their custody. When my grandson came to live with us, he would lie on the floor and hardly spoke. He underwent treatment, counseling and speech therapy. He is extremely traumatised and is yet to recover,” said Sagarika’s mother.

“They [the Norwegian authorities] did not understand our culture. We feed our children with our hands. They also sleep with their parents. Sagarika was not a negligent mother. The Norwegian authorities took the children away for one year but she fought to get them back. Thanks to the Indian government, our grandchildren returned home. I just pray that no other family suffers like ours did in Norway, which is known to be a developed country,” she added.

Sagarika’s 66-year-old father, who broke down over the phone, said, “Trauma affected my grandson’s development. His younger sister studies in Class 6 but he is in Class 5. Can you imagine their condition? I still break down when I think of how my daughter and grandchildren suffered.”

The couple recalled how Sagarika’s ordeal did not end with her return to India. Mrs Chatterjee Vs Norway, starring Rani Mukherjee and based on ‘The Journey of a Mother’, details the struggle that Anurup and Sagarika went through after their children were taken away by the Norwegian authorities in 2011. Following negotiations and intervention by the Union Ministry of External Affairs, Anurup’s brother returned to India with the children in 2012. Sagarika also returned around the same time. Sagarika’s marriage came under severe strain.

Her mother said, “We did not like the idea of giving the children’s custody to their uncle but I convinced my daughter to allow it just to get the children back to India. Anurup never returned to India. His brother came back with the children. Sagarika returned to India too but was not allowed to see the children. They were taken to their paternal grandparents’ home but Sagarika was still not allowed to meet them. The children were not even sent to school … we approached the Calcutta High Court. We won the custody battle in 2013.”

While Anurup’s family could not be contacted, Rajeev Sarkar, a family friend said, “It is true that Sagarika put up a brave fight to get her children back after they were taken away by the authorities in Norway. But Anurup had an equal role to play…Unfortunately, the couple fell apart.”