NRI offers to stay away from family if child returned to wife

LONDON: NRI Rajat Puri has said he is willing to stay away from his family in Oxford if his five-year-old son, Achintya, is returned to his wife, Shruti. The kid was taken away from the couple and handed to foster care after the British social service suspected that the father had "sexually abused and improperly touched" him.
"I will leave home and family for the time being and live somewhere else if Achintya is given back and till the case is resolved.At least my son will be with his biological mother rather than foster parents," Puri told TOI.
Shruti maintained that allegations against her husband were false. "I am Achintya's mother and there are no allegations against me. So why should he be taken from me? He should be returned to me or to my relatives like Achintya's grandparents. The law says foster care is the final option if no relatives or family are available."
The child's teachers had called police and social service officials after Achintya, a class I student, told them that his father "is a bad man" who does "dirty things''. Puri said the school misinterpreted the comment as "a case of sexual molestation''.
Shruti said she was looking for an Indian lawyer to fight the case when it comes up in court on May 13. "We want a lawyer, who understands Indian customs. Here they may interpret a father bathing his son as sexual molestation but in Indian families it is the done thing,'' she said. "Indian parents bathe their children, feed them and dress them. Does that mean they are being sexually molested?"