NEW DELHI: External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Thursday got in touch with India's Ambassador to Norway following reports that a five-year-old Indian child was separated from his parents, who have been accused of beating him up.
"I have asked the Indian Ambassador in Norway to send me a report," Sushma Swaraj tweeted.
According to reports, the child was taken from his kindergarten school on December 13 without the parents being informed and is being kept at a children's welfare home some 150 km away from Norwegian capital Oslo.
His mother, Gurvinderjit Kaur, was also taken into custody and was subjected to interrogation.
The child's father, Anil Kumar, who runs an Indian restaurant, has denied all the allegations and said that his son was asthmatic.
"They interrogated our child for about one-and-a-half hours. ..When asked whether his parents have loud discussions with each other and if they beat him up, his answer was no," Kumar was quoted as saying by the Indian Express.
Kumar claimed that the child was taken to another room by the police. On his return to the interview room, the child then reportedly told the police that he had been beaten up.
This is the third such case in Norway involving Indian children.
In 2011, a three-year-old and and a one-year-old were separated from their parents but were later reunited when the UPA government took up the issue with Norwegian authorities.
In another case of alleged child abuse in December 2012, a seven-year-old and a two-year-old were separated from their parents. The mother got a 15-month prison term and the father was jailed for 18 months.
The two children were sent to the custody of their grandparents in Hyderabad.