An Indian couple is fighting for the custody of their three-month-old baby, who was taken away from them by the child care services in the US after injuries were found on the body of the child.
The father of the child, Ashish Parikh, has written to the Minister of External Affairs, Sushma Swaraj, seeking help on the issue and pointing out that an accident was construed as a child abuse case.
According to Ashish, the baby sustained internal injuries when it slipped out of mother Vidisha Parikh's hands and hit his head on a TV stand after falling on the floor.
Vidisha then rushed the child to the nearest hospital from where he was transferred to another hospital. The child has recovered. However, the parents have been accused of 'Shaking Baby Syndrom (SBS)', Ashish wrote in his letter to the MEA.
The custody of the child has been given to the foster parents, Ashish added.
The couple — Ashish and Vidisha Parikh — are originally from Jaipur and they have been living in Jersey city since August 2015. Vidisha delivered the baby in October last year. Ashish is an employee of Tata Consulting Services in Jersey City.
Relatives of the couple, who spoke to NDTV in Jaipur, said: "It was an accident but the US authorities are saying that our family tried to harm the child. US authorities are saying the child has been treated in an inhuman way and so cannot be handed over to the parents. But this is untrue, it was an accident."
In 2012, a custody case of two Indian children in Norway had created a controversy between the two countries. The children Abhigyan and Aishwarya were taken away from the parents, Anurup and Sagarika Bhattacharya, for making the children sleep in the same bed as the parents and hand-feeding the children, among other accusations.
