Tearful mother greets kids back from Norway

Kolkata, April 25 (IANS) After nearly a year's wait, a tearful Sagarika Bhattacharya Wednesday got her two children back in her lap. The children had returned to India from Norway the day before.

The two children, who were in foster care in Norway after they were separated from their parents on grounds of alleged negligence, were brought to Kolkata Tuesday.

The siblings - three-year-old Abhyigyan and one-year-old Aishwarya - were given to their uncle, Arunabhash Bhattacharya, by a Norwegian court in the city of Stavanger Monday, following which the Indian government facilitated their return to the country.

Sagarika flew down from Mumbai Wednesday and rushed to the northern outskirts of the city where the two children have been kept at a relative's house.

She hugged and kissed them and said: "I am delighted that I can again hold them in my arms. What more could have I wanted as a mother. It is very difficult to express my feelings."

She said earlier she and her husband Anurup could meet them once a week, but later the Norwegian authorities did not even allow that. "I am meeting them after two months. I last met them on Feb 17 at a foster care centre in Norway after nine months for

nearly an hour."

"Then I found that Abhigyan had stopped talking, while Aishwarya could not recognise me," she told mediapersons while holding them together.

"I don't know what will happen but it is my biggest achievement that I am with my children...It is a great satisfaction to hold them in my arms again," she said.

The Norwegian court's decision came as a major breather for the Bhattacharya family, which had been trying to get back the custody of the children for nearly a year now.

The Indian government had put in all diplomatic efforts to ensure that the siblings returned to their homeland and grew up in their family environment.