Team Herald
PANJIM: An 11-year-old Polish girl has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, seeking their intervention in returning to Goa, which she calls her “home”.
Alicja Wanatko and her mother Marta Kotlarska had to leave the country in early April after they were blacklisted by the Foreigner Regional Registration Office in Chamoli in Uttarakhand for overstaying. Marta had then pleaded to former foreign affairs minister Sushma Swaraj claiming it to be “due to a misunderstanding”.
In her handwritten letter, which was tweeted to Modi and Jaishankar by her mother, Alicja congratulated Modi for his win and requested, “I would like to request your help and allow me and my mother to come back to India where we, despite not being Indian citizens, call our home. I came to live in Hindustan five years ago, when I was six years old and had been living there ever since. This is where all of my friends, my animals, my school and my happiness still are.”
Explaining their ordeal she stated, “Soon after we moved to India my father left me and my mother and we have struggled to rebuild our lives from this. We visited the holy shrines of Kedarnath, Badrinath and Gangotri and God has helped us regain our strength and happiness, just the two of us. Unfortunately another struggle came when we were left without documents to get visas by my mum’s employer.”
Talking about Goa as her home, she wrote, “I love my school in Goa, the beautiful nature and I am missing my volunteering in the animal rescue centre there where I was helping to take care of cows. My mum could not re-enter India on March 24, after a short trip out and we were told we were blacklisted due to our overstay. It just felt so unfair because it was not due to our fault. I was in India and I had to go to live with one of my Indian friend’s family and I was scared what is gonna happen to my mum.”
Hoping for a return she said “I am now with my mum but missing my old life more than ever. I feel so alone away from everything I have always known. I know my animals will be so confused and I cannot sleep without feeling angry or upset. It feels like everything is just destroyed again. I pray to Shiva and Nanda Devi to help us and I have decided to write to you because you are the most powerful person that can help me and my mom come back to India, my home.”
The mother and daughter are currently in Cambodia, awaiting a possible return to India.
