A Chennai slum dweller’s fight for her Dutch son

Source: Times of India
Jaya Menon, TNN, May 28, 2010, 03.15am IST

CHENNAI: On June 15, when Nagarani Kathirvel leaves the squalor of a Chennai slum for the first time and appears in a court hall in Zwolle-Lelystad in the Netherlands, she would still be a long way from the end of her bitter, traumatic struggle. But it would be a beginning — to establish in a foreign court of law that she is the mother of a 12-year-old Dutch boy. About 10 years ago, Rohit Shivam Bissesar was Satheesh Kumar, a toddler living in the Pulianthope slums, that is, until he was kidnapped and given away in adoption to a Dutch couple. Earlier this month, a court in the town of Lelystad in the Netherlands summoned her to appear before it.

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Manager held in child kidnap racket

Source: hinduonnet.com
Date: 2005-05-29

CHENNAI: The Central Crime Branch of the city police on Saturday arrested Somasundaram (48), Manager, Malaysian Social Services, near his residence in Koyambedu. The arrest was made by a team headed by Augustine Daniels, Assistant Commissioner of Police.

Mr. Somasundaram was charged with signing fake documents pertaining to about 40 children and for his involvement in the kidnap of a child from a Government Hospital in Salem in 1999. (more…)

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Tamil Nadu is home to adoption rackets and child-labour gangs

Source: www.indianexpress.com

CHENNAI, FEBRUARY 15 2007 : • When E Kathirvel and Nagarani, pavement- dwellers in Pulianthope, woke up on an October morning in 1999, they found their 18 month-old son Sateesh missing. On May 3, 2005, police located the boy. But he had been legally adopted by the Bisessars, a Dutch couple, who had named him Anbu Rohit Bisessar and lived in Almere in the Netherlands. Sateesh spoke only Dutch. The police showed Nagarani a picture of the boy, pinned to a register of a Chennai-based adoption agency, Malaysian Social Service, which was being investigated. “We want him back,” said Nagarani. The police have sought the Centre’s help to bring back Nagarani’s child, now 9. (more…)

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Manager held in child kidnap racket

Date: 2005-05-29

CHENNAI: The Central Crime Branch of the city police on Saturday arrested Somasundaram (48), Manager, Malaysian Social Services, near his residence in Koyambedu. The arrest was made by a team headed by Augustine Daniels, Assistant Commissioner of Police.

Mr. Somasundaram was charged with signing fake documents pertaining to about 40 children and for his involvement in the kidnap of a child from a Government Hospital in Salem in 1999.

As manager in Malaysian Social Services, he was in-charge of giving children in adoption within and outside the country, police said.

With his arrest, the number of those detained in connection with the child kidnap racket has risen to 11.

The case came to light during the first week of May, when the Otteri police received specific information about kidnapping of children from residential areas. They arrested Varadharajan, Sheikh Dawood, Navjeen, Sabeera, Manoharan, Salima and K.T. Dawood. A couple of days later, the case was transferred to the Crime Branch.

The investigators arrested Ravindranath, director, Vatsala, his wife and chairperson, and Dinesh, secretary of Malaysian Social Services, an organisation involved in accepting the children.

As news of the arrests appeared in the media, parents whose children went missing during 1998-99 thronged the police headquarters at Egmore.

Of the total 65 parents who visited the Commissioner’s office, only six were able to identify their missing children.

Among them, only three could be traced.

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