S African woman says she did not threaten activist

Would-be adoptive parent says she only expressed concern over child's health

After the Bombay High Court asked the Central Adoptive Resource Agency (CARA) to issue no-objection certificates (NOCs) in the case of 17 children at adoption centre Preet Mandir, people waiting to bring home these children can now finally go ahead with their plans.

MiD DAY had reported that a South African who wanted to adopt from Preet Mandir had allegedly threatened the president of NGO Sakhi, Anjali Pawar, asking her to withdraw her attention from the cases that were awaiting CARA's nod. Pawar had told MiD DAY that she had received a threat call from the South African woman.

Now, the South African woman in an email interview has denied having threatened the activist. She wrote that she had called Pawar because she was concerned about the way the case was developing. She said she was worried since that the child she would be adopting needed medical aid and any more delay was a matter of great concern for her.

She also stated that she felt the inquiry should be done by the court.

Pawar had written to the Women and Child Development Department and CARA demanding field research in the cases of all the children in order to verify whether the children were really destitute before being given to the centre for adoption. This demand may have disturbed many foreigners waiting to adopt babies.

In May, Preet Mandir's inter-country adoption licence was revoked. The South African woman had submitted a plea requesting the procedures should continue as it was done before May.

Advocate Shirin Merchant said several NOCs had already been issued. "In a majority of the cases, NOCs have been issued and petitions have been filed in a few cases in the family court," said Merchant.