A traumatic period for Ashish Pareek, Vidhisha Pareek.
AB Wire
It was a case which sent shudders up the spine of every new immigrant family in the United States, especially those with an infant or young child. The plausibility of it happening to any family, for that matter, is there at any time, or could be a matter of chance, but the repercussions could haunt one for a life time. As a young Indian couple and new immigrants Ashish Pareek and his wife Vidhisha Pareek learnt the hard way.
Ashish emigrated to the US, and settled in New Jersey, as an employee of Tata Consultancy Services, last year. His wife was pregnant when he reached America August 10, 2015. She gave birth to a baby boy, Ashvid, on October 21.
But an unfortunate incident changed their lives.
On her way to meet the pediatrician at a private clinic for vaccination on December 23, Ashvid fell on the floor accidentally and suffered an injury on his head. He underwent treatment at a hospital for seven days, and was in ICU.
After Ashvid recovered, the couple were charged with neglect of their child, and with child abuse, for allegedly inflicting Shaken Baby Syndrome. The couple appealed in court that it was just an accident. The court didn’t agree with them.
After months of trauma, including having their child taken away, and placed in a foster family home, at an Indian American household, the now Jaipur-based Vidhisha has been reunited with their child. Ashish will join the family soon, reported The Times of India. Ashvid came home earlier this month to Jaipur.
“Initially, they (baby’s parents) were allowed to meet the baby for a limited time period when he was in foster care. It was a tough time for them. They fought in the court. As a result, the child protection team in the US could not find anything wrong in their parenting,” Abhishek, the brother of Ashish was quoted as saying, in Jaipur.
In July, a New Jersey court had given the parents a major respite, as it allowed them to stay with the child full-time, but with the condition that the boy’s maternal grandparents who lived in Tonk, Rajasthan, would have to come to the US and keep the child under their supervision. The baby remained under the care of an American family before he was handed over to baby’s maternal grandfather.
“The passports of Ashish, Vidhisha and Ashvid were in the court’s custody. After court received reports of test conducted on Ashvid’s eye. Actually, (they realized) there is a clot on retina of Ashvid. The child protection team had alleged that Ashvid was thrown earlier too, which is why, he had clot on his retina. But, it was actually a wrong allegation. The clot was there since his birth, which was proved through the test conducted on him,” Abhishek said.
After the test report revealed that the clot was there at the time of his birth, the court instructed the Indian Embassy to issue visa for Ashvid, his mother and his grand-parents.
The Hindustan Times reported Vidhisha as saying after she was reunited with Ashvid, in Jaipur: “I cannot express my feelings in words. After all that happened in the last seven months, I am extremely grateful to everyone who helped us,” adding Ashish would join them after completing paper work in the US.
Ashish had also sought help from India’s external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj and also appealed to Rajasthan chief minister Vasundhara Raje, the Prime Minister’s Office and governor Kalyan Singh.
“We were finally given a clean chit by an US court on August 25,” she said, adding that special homemakers employed by the child development department in the US were stationed at their home for monitoring the child 24 hours.
“For 15-20 days, they would stay with us and continuously monitor our behavior to see that nothing untoward happened. Only after being convinced that there’s nothing wrong with us, they submitted a positive report in the court which was instrumental in getting us a clean chit,” she said.
“Everyone from the government really helped us. I want to especially thank the Indian community in New Jersey who supported us throughout the episode. The American foster parents were also very supportive,” she said.
2 Comments
I am glad the Pareek family is reunited, and that their baby was in a supportive foster home while denied the loving care of his parents. As this case illustrates, child abuse experts are remarkably attached to the diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome, even discounting better explanations readily found in the medical records. For the story of a family torn apart, permanently, when their child’s genetic disorder was misdiagnosed as shaking injury, please do a browser search for “Tammy Fourman prologue”
I am so glad the Pareek family is reunited, and that their little boy was in a supportive foster home while denied the loving care of his parents. As this case illustrates, child abuse experts are remarkably attached to the diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome, even discounting better explanations readily found in the medical records. For the story of a family torn apart, permanently, when their child’s genetic disorder was misdiagnosed as shaking injury, please see https://onsbs.com/prologue/