Mumbai: It’s been more than a decade since the infamous battle of an Indian couple fighting for the custody of two children with the Norway government took the world by storm.
The year was 2011, when the Norway child welfare service, also called Barnevarne, took away Anurup and Sagarika Bhattacharya’s two children and placed them in foster care. Now the couple’s struggle and their fight against an entire nation to reunite with their children has been made into a movie starring Rani Mukherjee.
‘Mrs Chatterjee vs Norway’ is set to release on March 17, this year, almost 12 years after Sagarika’s ordeal began.
In May 2011, Anurup and Sagarika lost custody of their toddlers – three-year-old Avigyan and one-year-old daughter Aishwarya – after Norwegian authorities objected to her hand-feeding the baby equating it to force-feeding.
They also said that the children did not have enough room to play. They were also accused of providing “unsuitable” clothes and toys to their children.
Norway’s Child Protective Service took equal objection to the child sleeping in the same bed as the father, insisting the boy must have an independent bed.
After a diplomatic row between the two countries, the Norwegian authorities decided to award the custody of the children to the brother of their father, enabling him to bring them back to India.
However, by then Anurup and Sagarika were estranged. Sagarika had to take legal remedies to get custody of her children. After a lengthy legal battle, Sagarika was able to take her children home. She was granted custody of her son Abhigyan and her daughter Aishwarya by the Calcutta High Court in January 2013.
