AHMEDABAD:
Almost over six years after post-Godhra riots, a Muslim couple found their
missing son not only alive, but raised by a Hindu couple. However, the case now
looks like a legal battle over custody between the two sets of parents. It has
also rekindled hopes of many other parents who lost their children in the
riots.
A Metropolitan court on
Wednesday dismissed the Muslim couple's plea for custody of their son, after the
boy himself refused to go with his real
parents.
Mohammed Salim Shaikh
and his wife Jaibunnisa along with their two sons had sought refuge in Gulbarg
society on the fateful day of February 28, 2002. During the mob attack, 38
persons were killed and 31 went missing. Among them were Shaikh's sister and his
two-and-a-half-year-old son, Muzaffar, now Vivek Vikram Patni. The couple lost
track of the kid after they gathered for shelter in late MP Ahsan Jafri's
house.
On July 14, the Supreme
Court-appointed special investigation team (SIT) told the Shaikhs that their son
was alive. According to SIT, Muzaffar went missing during the attack, and was
found by a constable of the crime branch, who took the boy to his cousin -
Vikram and Meena Patni in Saraspur. They raised him as their son. Since then,
Muzaffar, now nine, is living with the Patni family, who is in the business of
selling fish.
"We found the
boy a year and a half ago and informed the SIT who carried out the DNA test last
month," said Teesta Setalvad of Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP)
The DNA sample matched with
Shaikh and his wife. After this the couple filed for custody in the metropolitan
court. However, when Meena refused custody, the court asked the boy who also
refused to go and preferred to stay with
Meena.
Aggrieved with the
court's decision, Shaikh is now planning to move Gujarat High Court for the
custody. "A missing persons' report has been lodged for my son at Meghaninagar
police station, and this couple had also assured the police that they would
return this kid when police would find the child's real parent. And now the
woman is denying, but I will fight till the Supreme Court for Muzaffar," he
said. Shaikh has three other children and works in a plastic manufacturing
company in Naroda.
The
development has rekindled hope for the Modys, a Parsi family which took shelter
in Jafri's house and their son Azhar went missing. "Now, we have hope of finding
Azzu as well," said Dara Mody, his father. This story had inspired the film
Parzania
.