LOST IN CUSTODY

SHOWING off his dance moves to the beats of the latest Bollywood tune, Lakshya seems to be settling, though with difficulty, into his new home. Visibly fond of his Rani mummy, he also enjoys spending time with his grandmother and two-year-old sister Kittu. Dinesh is working longer hours and drinking less. Both parents, says Babita, are recovering from ill health, the stress of fighting for their son.
The Jindals, meanwhile, have not contacted Lakshya since his return home.
“He’s found his real parents now,” said Anil. “I have two other sons. We adopted Lakshya because he was very ill when I saw him at the orphanage.”
Visiting him is out of question, he says, asking, “How will it be for his career? If he sees me it will be difficult for him.”
About life with Lakshya, the Jindals will not speak. “I don’t want to renew the painful time,” he says.
But Sonia Sachdeva, a teacher at Mother’s Pride, shares her memories of Lakshya from West Punjabi Bagh.
“He was a charming and mischievous boy, very curious,” she says, recollecting Anil and Vandana Jindal too at school celebrations and parent-teacher meetings.
“The parents and the child seemed attached to each another. Lakshya was definitely being well looked after. An impressive boy,” she adds.
Walking away from the Sharma’s home, I hear the urgent shuffle of feet and cast back a glance. I stop and watch as Lakshya leaps across the open drain circling his house, skips past the neighbouring plot of land, strewn carelessly with litter, and runs towards me. “Are you going to see the Jindals?” he asks, eagerly, hopefully.
4 Lakshya with his mother Babita
Photographs by Amit mehra; Imaging by raajan)

It was on February 18, 2004 that two-year-old Prateek (later named Lakshya) went missing. His mother Babita, after an argument with her husband Dinesh, had gone to live with her mother, leaving Prateek behind. In an attempt to reconcile the married couple, Dinesh’s sister, Shashi Sharma, took Prateek to Babita. At the house, once Shashi spotted Prateek’s grandmother, she left him at the gate. The grandmother, thinking Prateek had left with the aunt, returned inside. Only 20 days later, when Dinesh and Babita reached a compromise and renewed communication, did they realise their son was not in the care of either parent.

Found roaming alone that same day on Shukra Bazar Road, Matiala, Prateek was picked up by a police officer and taken to Matiala Police Station. The whirlwind speed—42 minutes according to Dinesh’s advocate, D.D. Singhla—with which he was deposited at the Bal Vihar Orphanage Centre in Palam, without adequate checks about the child’s family, has come under attack from the court. The police’s treatment of Dinesh, when he repeatedly inquired about his son's whereabouts, has also been criticised.

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