Team Herald
MARGAO: Auda Viegas of Bailancho Ekvott demanded that affixing parents’ photographs while registering the birth of a child be made mandatory to curb the rising incidents of child snatching in Goa. Briefing media persons in Margao she referred to two specific cases and said this was a mere tip of the iceberg.
The first case revealed by her involved a retired director of a very prestigious government department who tried to forcibly take away a male child from his mother only because he is the father of two daughters and wanted a male child.
In this case, the man’s daughter befriended a girl from Manipur who was working as a masseuse in Goa who got pregnant. The former government servant’s family took the Manipuri girl under their roof throughout her pregnancy and looked after her even during her delivery and nursing period.
However, after a few months they tried to wean the child away from the mother who had also started working. One day when she returned from work, they refused to let her in and said they would be able to look after the child better.
The distraught woman was compelled to go to the police, who acted swiftly and compelled the retired government servant to come to the police station with the child who was then given to the mother. The mother has since returned to Manipur but refused to lodge any complaint with the police as the family had looked after her in her hour of nee and hence the police could not act in the matter.
In the other case, Auda demanded that the police investigate the matter thoroughly as a Goan couple maliciously and fraudulently tried to take away a child born to a Nepali woman and further threatened the couple with dire consequences and is now demanding money from her.
A Goan woman from Salcete befriended a Nepali woman who had two children and in the course of their friendship pestered the Nepali woman to give her the child if and when she delivers a boy.
The Napali woman then conceived and the Goan lady started giving her Rs 20,000 every month for eight months towards her expenses.
The Nepali lady delivered a baby boy on July 21, 2016 at Hospicio and the child’s birth was registered before the Registrar of Births and Deaths and four days later the lady was discharged from the hospital. However the Goan lady who used to visit her every day in the hospital got the mother and her husband to sign some papers saying that the child was sick with jaundice and needed to be taken to another hospital and subsequently got the couple to sign another paper saying that the child needed further treatment.
However, after signing the two papers there was no sign of the Goan lady and the Nepali lady had practically given up on ever seeing a child. However, when she went to get her daughter admitted to a convent school, the principal – a nun – asked her to sign some papers and that is when the lady broke down and spilled out her tragic tale.
The sister then accompanied the Nepali woman to the police station to lodge a complaint following which the police traced the Goan woman based on the Aadhar card photocopy she had given to the Nepali woman. When the Goan woman was brought to the police station, she claimed to have paid Rs 4,00,000 to the Nepali woman and showed the couple’s signature on a simple paper stating that they had received the money.
However, the police insisted on the woman getting the child and once she came with the child it was handed over to the mother.
Auda while congratulating the police for their prompt work in returning the children to their mothers demanded that in the second case police should investigate the Goan couple’s deeds thoroughly as her husband who is currently sailing is reportedly making threatening calls to the Nepali woman and her husband.
She also demanded that the Goan couple be booked for taking custody of somebody else’s child illegally for more than four months and also how they could get the illiterate Nepali couple to sign an “Undertaking cum Declaration on Oath” on a Rs 50 Stamp paper without any witnesses or before any authorized person.
“There have been complaints of children snatching from different parts of Goa and I feel what we have uncovered is a mere tip of the iceberg,” she said while urging people to report such cases immediately to the police.
