Police books CPM leaders after a mother's months-long-battle looking for her child

Thiruvananthapuram: After months of a mother's fight for her newborn who was forcibly taken from her shortly after delivery, the police have registered an FIR on her parents based on her complaint, The Indian Express reported. The mother hasn't seen her child since it was taken from her. After the police registered the FIR on Tuesday, the State Women's Commission registered a case on Thursday.

The distraught mother, Anupama S Chandran, an SFI leader and daughter of two local CPM leaders, P S Jayachandran and Smitha James, had filed a complaint with the police in April, naming her parents, her sister and brother-in-law. When no action was taken, she approached the district police chief and Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. But the FIR still took six months to get filed.

Anupama told reporters on Thursday that as the biological mother, she has every right to know the details about her child. She said she wanted her child back and was ready for a legal fight.

But police said that tracking the child was difficult as it had been adopted from the shelter home where it was left. The regulations do not permit the disclosure of its identity or whereabouts.

Anupama said that she and Ajith Kumar, the father of her child, had fallen in love five years back. Ajith Kumar was married then but got divorced when Anupama got pregnant, and they started living together in September last year when she was eight months pregnant. But her parents disapproved of her relationship but later promised to get the two married. But when she returned home, she was locked, and there were multiple attempts to abort the child which she resisted. In October last year, she delivered the child, but the child got taken away, and she knew nothing about its whereabouts after.

She said she was tortured when she asked about her child, kept locked through her sister's wedding and was taken to her mother's maternal home for "counselling". But early this year, she managed to leave her parents and started living with Ajith. On April 15, she filed the complaint with the police, naming her father, as there was no information about her child.

Anupama accused her father of fabricating a document, with her signature, that says she could not look after the child. The document reportedly says that Anupama would not approach the child welfare committee for the child too. The child was apparently at the shelter for two months.

Police denied claims that they dragged the case because of the involvement of CPM leaders. They said that Anupama's father produced the document saying they were leaving the child with the child welfare committee. Also, the committee kept the child for two months in case its mother turned up.