Thiruvananthapuram: The Opposition UDF on Tuesday said that top CPM leaders had entered into a criminal conspiracy with the government machinery to deny a young mother, Anupama, her newborn child.
Revolutionary Marxist Party's KK Rema, who raised the issue in the Assembly, described the government's attitude as "honour crime". "Usually, it is the family that perpetrated such crimes. Here, the entire apparatus of the State joined hands with the family to deprive a mother of her child, " Rema said.
She said the police and the Child Welfare Council worked together at the behest of CPM leaders to snatch the child from the mother. The father of the aggrieved mother is a local committee member of the CPM.
Opposition Leader V D Satheesan also said that what was done to Anupama was a honour crime as dangerous as honour killing. " Why do you still call yourself the Left, " Satheesan asked. "You take right-wing conservative positions. You call yourself progressives but behave in an extremely regressive manner, " he added.
Though it was Family Welfare Minister Veena George who articulated the government's stand on the issue, the Opposition leaders, especially Rema, trained their guns mostly on Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan who held the Home portfolio.
Rema said the police were under the political and financial influence of the CPM. "No FIR has been filed even six months after the mother had filed a complaint, " Rema said, and added: "The Home Department's spine has become highly flexible."
Satheesan said that the mother had given a complaint to the Chief Minister also. "You are also the chairman of the Child Welfare Council. You should be knowing what is going on under you, " Satheesan told Pinarayi.
"A senior CPM leader, P K Sreemathy had said that she had informed the chief minister's political secretary, too, about the injustice meted out to Anupama. Sreemathy then publicly conceded that she had failed, " Satheesan said.
The Opposition Leader then dismantled Veena George's argument that the Child Welfare Council had done nothing improper in placing the child for adoption.
"First they said that the child was placed in the 'Ammathottil' (a cradle where a child could be anonymously placed), but on the day (October 23, 2020) there was no such facility as work was on to shift it to another location. In fact, the grandparent (Anupama's father Jayachandran and the main accused) himself had told that he had handed over the child to the CWC authorities," Satheesan said.
To establish that there was a conspiracy, Satheesan said that the grandparents took the child the very day itself, at 3 a.m., to the nearby women and child hospital and recorded the child as a girl and christened the child Malala Yusuf.
"Later when media reports of the wrong gender came out, the grandparents revised the records and re-entered the child as a boy," Satheesan said.
The women and child minister had told the Assembly that the CWC had put out a newspaper ad about the "abandoned child" as was required under adoption regulations and said that no one had enquired about the child within the mandatory 30 days. Satheesan disputed this. He said Anupama had approached the Council after seeing the ad.
"But the Council showed her another boy. Her DNA was matched with this boy and was told it was not her kid, " Satheesan said.
He also said that the Council went ahead with the adoption proceedings knowing fully well that Anupama was looking for her child. It was in April this year that Anupama had filed a complaint charging her parents for taking away her child without her consent. The adoption committee met three months later in August.
'Judicial enquiry needed'
MLA Rema has demanded a judicial probe in the matter claiming that the council for child welfare and the police have made illegal interventions. Rema said that the police dallied on Anupama's complaint for six months without registering a case.
She has also demanded the council to be dissolved. Rema has accused Anupama's father, who is a CPM member, of trying to misuse government machinery in the crime.
Meanwhile, the Speaker muted the MLA's mic saying she has crossed the allotted slot. This prompted the opposition to enter the well of the house in protest.