Author: Tapas Chakraborty
Publication: Yahoo News
Date: December 30, 2002
URL: http://in.news.yahoo.com/021229/58/1zksy.html
A Hindu couple has adopted an "illegitimate
Muslim child" who had become a thorn in the side of the minority community
in a small village about 36 km from here, providing one bright spark of
amity in the gloom of communal polarisation.
The saga of brotherhood had begun
on an ominous note last year, when a flood of anger and exasperation swept
through tiny Narcotia as 20-year-old Sakina, who was studying in a college,
was found in an advanced stage of pregnancy.
Her desperate parents approached
doctors for an abortion, but the medical fraternity ruled out any chance
of a medical termination of pregnancy.
As the child grew in his mother's
womb, so rose the tension in the village. A swirl of rumours was unleashed
about a possible communal conspiracy and conflicting accounts of who could
be behind Sakina's misery. Soon, even the village elders were losing their
cool and tempers were beginning to fray.
The village seemed to be sitting
on a powder keg, when finally Sakina spoke. She told her family of her
involvement with her elder sister's husband, Mohammad Yusuf, who worked
in the Gulf.
On learning about Sakina's plight,
Yusuf came and wanted to marry her. But the elders would not consent to
the 55-year-old taking a bride less than half his age.
Sakina carried her unwanted pregnancy
to term and gave birth of a boy in Dr Asha Kushawaha's nursing home this
October.
As the girl headed home, forced
by her parents to leave the child behind, her community members quarrelled
about the boy's fate. Many said he should be sent to an orphanage. But
the doctor at the nursing home suggested that he be given up for adoption.
Enter the Brij Kishore Singh couple.
They and two other Hindu couples - J.P. Shah and G.P. Singh - evinced interest
in adopting the child.
"There was no one from the Muslim
community because of the obvious social taboo. But three Hindu couples
approached the Ramgarh police station, seeking to adopt the child," said
Himanshu Kumar, a villager involved in the process.
The village breathed a sigh of relief
when they filed applications in the court seeking adoption. "They were
all childless couples looking for adoption," said Ramjivan Kumar, another
villager.
Since all three couples fulfilled
the initial criteria - they were childless - the village elders and the
Ramgarh police station laid another condition: a deposit of Rs 20,000.
A police inquiry was made into their backgrounds and their records were
placed before the court in Ramgarh.
"Brij Kishore Singh and his wife
finally got to adopt the child," said R.K. Singh, an officer of the Ramgarh
police station involved in implementing the court order on the adoption.
The overjoyed couple came to Narcotia
to formally take custody of the baby. He was fed milk in their lap and
photographed. The two communities came together and blessed the child as
he started a new innings.
The boy is growing in the fond care
of his "new parents", who are employed with a private sector unit in Tatanagar.
He has been aptly named Aman.
