Kids home, family says doesn’t know what to tell them

With a court in Oslo putting off sentencing of an Indian couple in a child abuse case till Tuesday, the wait of two families in Hyderabad has become longer. The families say what they are finding the hardest is to answer the questions of the couple's elder son, the one allegedly at the centre of the row.

"Saisriram, now 7, is very withdrawn and keeps asking about his parents. We are just lying to them that they will be back from Norway soon. We are taking good care of them but parental care is different," said V Shailendra, the nephew of Valabneni Chandra Sekhar, who has been held in Oslo along with wife Anupama on the charge of abusing their son.

They don't send Saisriram out either, for fear someone might tell him the truth.

On Monday, when the court was to decide the sentencing, Sekhar's parents were glued to TV, taking breaks only to call his friends in Oslo for updates. Father V Satyanarayana, 71, relatives said, has hardly been eating. Anupama's parents joined Valabneni at their home.

"Parents of Sekhar and Anupama are upset. They feel the couple have been arrested for something they did not do," said a relative.

Anupama's father L Veerabhadra said he was heart-broken. "It is hard to imagine my daughter and son-in-law in jail. They are such loving parents. I don't know why the authorities took such drastic action against them," he said.

A techie working for a multinational firm in Hyderabad, Sekhar was posted to Oslo a and a half ago, and his wife Anupama and two sons joined him last July.

"Fortunately, he has a large group of friends in Oslo , some of them techies from Hyderabad, who are offering their support. An officer from the Indian Consulate has gone and met the couple in jail. All we can do now is wait and pray," V Satyanarayana said.

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