"Mother Should Get Baby": Kerala CPI(M) On Alleged Kidnapping By Leader

Days after a CPI(M) leader was booked for kidnapping his grandchild, the party on Friday asserted that it wants the affected woman to get her baby back. However, the ruling party said it has limitations in intervening in the matter as it involves legal implications.

Senior leader and party district secretary Anavoor Nagappan admitted that the issue was brought to his notice and the party leadership by Anupama S Chandran, daughter of CPI(M) local committee member P S Jayachandran, some time back.

The woman was told that the issue could not be sorted out at the party level and advised to go the legal way to get her baby back, he told media here.

"The mother should get her baby...that is always the party's stand. I have informed Ms Anupama that the issue could not be sorted out at the party level and so we can not intervene. I also offered her support if she goes the legal way," Mr Nagappan said.

He also said the 23-year-old woman had never come to meet him but only submitted a letter of complaint at his office and later spoke over the phone.

The senior leader also said he had talked to Ms Anupama's father, P S Jayachandran, a local committee member of the party, based on her complaint and advised him to give her the baby back.

"But, he had said he was unable to do so as the child was handed over to the state-run Child Welfare Centre and there were legal hurdles to reclaim the infant" the leader added.

The party's explanation came days after Ms Anupama, a former leader of the Students' Federation of India (SFI), a feeder organisation of the CPI(M), alleged that though she had submitted her complaint to the senior Marxist party leaders including Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, no one had helped her to get her baby back.

She had accused her parents of forcefully having taken away her newborn child from her soon after its birth a year ago and alleged that though she had lodged a complaint with the police several times since April, they were reluctant to register a case against the family members.

However, Peroorkkada police here had said that a case was registered earlier this week against six people including her parents, sister, and husband, and father's two friends, and said the delay happened as they were waiting for the legal opinion.

Multiple charges, under IPC Section 343 (wrongful confinement), 361 (kidnapping from wrongful guardianship), 471 (using as genuine a forged document), and so on, were imposed against the accused, they said.

According to Ms Anupama's complaint, her parents did not like her relationship with Mr Ajith, who was also a youth federation leader of the Left party.

As the child was born out of wedlock, they had forcefully taken away the boy child, three days after she got discharged from the hospital post-delivery.

She left home in April and has been living with Mr Ajith since then, she said.

Police, however, said, her father Mr Jayachandran admitted that the child was separated from his daughter by them but claimed during the interrogation that it was done with her consent.

According to the father's statement, the child was placed in the "Ammathottil", the electric cradle located in front of the state-run Child Welfare Centre at Thycaud in October last year.

As per the rules of the centre, when they receive a child in the cradle, they would keep the baby with them for the next two months. If no one comes forward to claim the child, they would allow the public to adopt the infant.

The investigation is still going on to collect more details and trace the baby, the police had added.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)