Some Hope For Indian Girl In Germany
In October last year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had raised the matter with the previous German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. The then German Chancellor had told PM Modi that he was following the case very closely.
New Delhi:There has been some “progress” on the case pertaining to Ariha Shah, who had been separated from her Indian parents and is in specialised foster care in Germany for more than three years, India said on Friday. Details are to be revealed soon.
It said consular visits to the child by Indian diplomats were taking place and that they had arranged books and organised temple visits for the child to ensure her cultural and religious rights are protected. Earlier this week, external affairs minister (EAM) S. Jaishankar had raised with his German counterpart Johann David Wadephul the issue of Ariha and had said her “cultural rights must be protected”.
The child’s distraught parents, software developer Bhavesh Shah and his wife Dhara, had sought the intervention of the Indian government and have been trying to regain custody of their child from the German authorities.
Shah had moved to Germany with his wife in 2018 after getting a job at an IT company in Berlin. The family is reportedly from a Gujarati Jain background. Amid media reports that the child was injured accidentally when she was a few months old, in the presence of her grandmother, she was separated from her parents by German authorities.
Three years ago, Germany had said the child was put in German child care custody as there were “serious concerns” about her well-being and that a child is put in official German child custody foster care only in case of either “violence, sexual abuse or extreme negligence”.
In October last year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had raised the matter with the previous German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. The then German Chancellor had told PM Modi that he was following the case very closely.
India had two years ago asked Germany to ensure the return of Ariha to India and had then expressed dismay that New Delhi’s earlier requests to Germany for safeguarding the child’s “national and cultural identity” had not been met. New Delhi had said it was “dismayed to learn that the child was abruptly shifted away from her current foster parent to a specialised foster care arrangement” and said “this rapid change is not in the child’s best interest and could have far-reaching consequences for her emotional and mental development”.