Aidan Anu Ajith is finally with his parents. Swaddled in a red blanket, the little child, who was oblivious to the media attention on him, was held close by his emotional mother, Anupama Chandran. On 24 November, Anupama and her partner Ajith walked out of the Vanchiyoor court in Thiruvananthapuram, with their one-year-old son Aidan with them.
The couple’s 11-month-long fight for their child ended in a victory as a DNA test proved that they are the biological parents of a child that was given away for adoption to a couple in Andhra Pradesh.
A day after the DNA test came, the Child Welfare Committee (CWC) informed the Vanchiyoor family court that it has decided to hand over the child to its biological parents. The child was produced before the magistrate and then handed over to the parents, in front of the magistrate.
Anupama was unmarried when she conceived the baby and her parents did not approve of her relationship with Ajith who was already married and was going through a divorce procedure. According to Anupama, her parents told her that they would accept the relationship once Anupama's sister's wedding was over. However, they seperated Anupama from her child and abandoned it at an electronic cradle. The child was then put up in foster care with a couple in Andhra Pradesh.
What made the case murky was that Anupama’s father Jayachandran, a CPI(M) leader abandoned the child with help from officials. Anupama has repeatedly alleged that various child welfare agencies helped her father.
Anupama and Ajith had given their samples on Monday, 22 November, after the DNA test had been ordered by the Child Welfare Committee (CWC), and was conducted at the Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology, Thiruvananthapuram.
Anupama’s battle was not a simple one — she did not receive any help from the Kerala police, child welfare authorities, CPI(M) politicians or the government.
Anupama had given birth to a baby boy on 19 October 2020, and the child had been given up for adoption by her parents without her consent. This was because Anupama was unmarried during the time and her parents did not approve of her relationship with Ajith.
According to Anupama, her parents told her that they would accept the relationship once Anupama's sister's wedding was over. However, they seperated Anupama from her child and abandoned it at an electronic cradle.
The child was then put up in foster care with a couple in Andhra Pradesh. Anupama had alleged that her parents kidnapped her baby soon after his birth and gave him up for adoption through the Kerala State Council for Child Welfare (KSCCW) a year ago. A family court stayed the adoption based on Anupama’s petition. After this, the CWC had instructed that the child be brought back to Kerala.
(Published in an arrangement with The News Minute)
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