Boy lost in Guj riots chooses home | Have your say

A CHILD IN TIME: Vivek wants to live with his adopted Hindu parents.

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Keywords: Foster Parents, Adoption

Ahmedabad: Jebunissa Sheikh and Mohammed Salim Sheikh found their lost son Muzaffar six years after the 2002 Gujarat riots. He was no longer Muzaffar though but Vivek, a Hindu boy.

Muzaffar was three when riots broke in Ahemedabad. Jebunissa and Shaik took refuge in Gulbarga Society in February 20002 but lost Muzaffar while fleeing from rioters.

A special investigation team (SIT) appointed by the Supreme Court told the couple in July that Muzaffar was alive. A Gujarat Police constable had found Muzaffar and took him to his relatives, Vikram and Meena Patni. The Patnis adopted Muzaffar and named him Vivek.

A DNA test conducted by the SIT confirmed Jebunissa is Vivek's mother but a metropolitan court in Ahmedabad gave Vivek's custody to the Patni as the boy wanted to stay with them.

"I want to stay here (with the Patnis). I belong to this family. I do not want to go to anywhere else,” says the boy.

For Salim and Jebunissa, the court's order came as a rude shock. “See what has happened over the past seven years? Now that I know he's alive, I can't stay without him even for a day. I'll got to any court to get him back," says Jebunissa.

NGOs fighting for riot victims allege the police and court have been unfair to the Shaikhs. "It is a case of illegal confinement. We trusted the Gujarat police and the SIT and we have been betrayed. We'll go to the High Court," says Teesta Setalvad, secretary of Citizen's for Justice and Peace.

The 2002 riots ruined thousands of families in Gujarat. The Sheikhs were relieved to know that their son survived in 2002 but eight years later courts will decide if he can come back to them.