Assam: DNA test to settle matter as couple, woman fight over 15-yr-old boy

Maleka Khatun, a widow who lives in Sontali village near Boko in Kamrup district, and who is believed to have given him shelter and renamed him Saiful, has refused to hand him over, saying the 15-year-old was her son.

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The 2012 violence had displaced over four lakh people, thousands of whom are yet to return to their homes.

Manoranjan and Uma live in Besimari village under Fakiragram in Kokrajhar district. They say that Bishal, who was then 11, was visiting his aunt Sabitribala Das in Jaraguri village in Bongaigaon district when the violence started. After the violence subsided, he left for home with Sabitribala’s son Bipul, 16.

The two never made it to Fakiragram. Sabitribala eventually lodged an FIR at the Gerukabari police outpost after nearly a month of waiting.

“We registered the missing person’s FIR in which a woman said her son Bipul and nephew Bishal had gone missing. In August last year, the woman informed us that one of the boys, Bishal, had been traced to a village near Boko in Kamrup district. When Bishal’s parents went to that village, they recognised their son and the boy too recognised his parents. But Maleka Khatun, in whose house the boy has been living since 2012, has claimed him to be her son, and has refused to part with him,” said Kumar Sanjit Krishna, Superintendent of Police, Bongaigaon.

After Maleka turned them away, Manoranjan and Uma lodged a complaint at the Boko police station, saying their son was being forcibly kept confined by her. Police in turn informed the district child protection officials, who took charge of the boy.

“As two couples are claiming to be parents of the boy, we have referred the matter to the forensic science laboratory for a DNA test,” SP Krishna said, adding that while Manoranjan and Uma had reported to the Bongaigaon Civil Hospital for collection of blood samples for the test, Maleka had not turned up.

B K Das, officer in-charge of Sontali police outpost, said he was not aware whether Maleka had been served with a notice to present herself for the DNA test. “The woman, who has another son, was firm regarding her claim when Manoranjan and Uma had arrived in Sontali to take away the boy,” he added, talking to The Indian Express over the phone.

Bishal, who too gave blood samples for the test, met Manoranjan and Uma briefly at the hospital. “He was brought to Bongaigaon by child welfare officials, who almost immediately drove him back to the children’s home in Guwahati,” Krishna said.

Once the test results come, the boy would be reunited with his parents, he said.

Police are also trying to determine how Bishal reached Kamrup district, as also the whereabouts of his cousin Bipul, who remains missing. Bishal has told them the two of them had boarded a Guwahati-bound train at Bijni after not being able to get to Fakiragram because of the violence and curfew. From Guwahati, both reportedly took a bus and reached Boko, where they somehow got separated.

“Bishal was reportedly given shelter by Maleka, who also allegedly made him work at a roadside tea stall. It was probably from there that the story of Bishal being a missing boy from Fakiragram spread, with his picture also finding way to a social media site,” Krishna said.

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