US couple adopts 3-year-old girl rescued from Lalgarh forest

Midnapore: A baby girl, rescued by central forces from the forests of

Jhargram

’s

Lalgarh

three years ago, found her forever home with an American

couple

on Wednesday.

John Stewart and his wife Meredith had applied to the Central

Adoption

Resource Authority (CARA) in New Delhi five months ago. Responding to their appeal,

CARA

— an autonomous and statutory body under the ministry of women and child development — led them to Nibedita Gramin Karma Mandir, a destitute home in Jhargram Manikpara, where a 3-year-old needed loving parents.

Debasis Banerjee, secretary of the shelter, said the little girl flew to Georgia, US, after the Stewarts completed mandatory paperwork. “The couple had to seek requisite permission from a Jhargram court and furnish relevant certificates/documents from CARA before they got her passport done,” he said.

A representative of an authorised foreign adoption agency, member of child welfare committee Mousumi Hajra and district child protection officer Biswajit Shaw were among those present on the occasion.

The couple, who are biological parents to a boy and a girl in their teens, wanted to adopt a child from India who had had a challenging past. “They wanted to give another child a better future. They believe that if every privileged couple takes such an initiative, the world will be a happier place,” Banerjee said.

Rescued by CoBRA jawans from Jhitka forest in Maoist hotbed Lalgarh, the severely malnourished baby was handed over to the Midnapore division of West Bengal Commission for Protection of Child Rights in 2018. She was under treatment until she was adopted.

Nibedita Gramin Karma Mandir currently has six more children who need homes. In the past five years, three kids from the shelter were adopted by families in the US and Spain.