NEW DELHI: The Indian embassy in Oslo repeatedly told the Ministry of External Affairs to exercise restraint in the case of the two Indian children sent to foster care, but public pressure seems to have got the best of the ministry as responded aggressively. The young Kolkata couple, Anurup and Sagorika Chakraborty, had first come to the notice of child welfare services in Stavanger in 2010 over the behaviour of their son, then just two years old. The media fever reached its peak when the two sets of grandparents went on a fast in the diplomatic enclave, amid a battery of cameras, on February 28. They met Krishna, accompanied by Communist Party of India (Marxist) member Brinda Karat. During that time, the ministry for the first time sent a special envoy on a consular issue. According to another MEA official, the underlying assumption in handling the case was that it was an Indian couple in trouble outside the country and that the decision of the authorities in Norway was too harsh.
“They (the children) were supposed to be in foster care till 18. This is too extreme. We know that there are subjective elements… but the general impression that we got was the Norwegian authorities went overboard in this case,” the official said.