Parents trace kidnapped child to US
CHENNAI: The sensational ‘child trafficking case’ busted by the city police a couple of days ago took an interesting turn on Thursday with the biological parents of one of the missing children tracing it to the US.
The police had earlier traced six of the missing children, who were adopted by people within and outside the country from Malaysian Social Service, an NGO based in Thiruverkadu. Five people have already been arrested in connection with these cases and the search is on for one more women.
Meanwhile, a number of people, all parents and relatives of children who were kidnapped from various parts of the city in the past few years, thronged the City Central Crime Branch office on Thursday hoping that their wards could be traced.
People came from areas like Puliyanthope, Perungudi, Porur, Maduravoil, Thousands Lights, Radhakrishnan Nagar, Mahakavi Bharathi Nagar and Chitlapakkam.
Most of the children, in the age group of one-and-a-half to nine years, had gone missing between 1998 to 2001.
One of them, Subhash, son of Nagesh and Sivagami of Puliyanthope, was identified on Thursday from the adoption records of ‘Malaysian Social Service’.
Subhash went missing in February 1999 when he was one-and-half-year-old and the police said the records showed that the child was adopted by a couple in the United States. Interestingly, Thursday is the birthday of Subhash.
‘‘After our herculean efforts for over six years, we have now come to know that he is at least alive somewhere. We only appeal to the police to restore our child to us as soon as possible,’’ Nagesh and Sivagami said.
Kadhirvelu, father of another missing child, Satheesh Kumar, from the same area, too, has traced his son. He was sold through the same NGO.
Meanwhile, Malaysian Social Service strongly denied the allegations against it. ‘‘We have been doing social service for over 25 years. We have given about 325 children for adoption between 1991 and 2002 and have not done anything wrong,’’ said a managing committee member of the home.
‘‘In fact, we keep photographs of all the children and also of those who bring them to us. All that have been handed over to the police,’’ he added.
However, the Central Crime Branch officials, who took over the case from Otteri police, are a confused lot.
‘‘Since it is an unusual crime, we have to study it thoroughly. The legality, too, has to be checked. When the court has put legal stamp on the adoption, who will have the claim over the child? The biological parents or the foster parents? We only hope that we will be able to solve this case reasonably fast,’’ said a senior CCB official.