Ares
for Daijiworld Media Network - Panaji (AF)

Panaji, May 7: A Russian woman  has alleged that Goa police helped her ex-husband take illegal custody of her six year old child despite she being the legal guardian as per Moscow court orders.

Anastasia Petrina, a divorcee, on her visit to Goa and Bangalore along with her six-year-old son Egor Petrina, has alleged that Anjuna police allowed her ex-husband, who is also in Goa on business visa, to abduct her son although she is the legal guardian of the child.

The husband-wife duo had arrived in Goa on different dates and were staying at Vagator in North Goa.

Anastasia arrived in India on October 29, 2007 while her husband Alexsandr Kirichenko, 40, was already in Goa on a business visa.

'My ex-husband used to visit the child occasionally in Vagator and he took away the child on Sunday May 4. I complained to the police to trace the child and my ex-husband but they allowed the father to take the child despite the fact that Moscow court had pronounced me as legal guardian,' Anastasia told reporters here.

Anjuna police station, which was in the midst of controversy for wrongly handling British teenager Scarlett Eden Keeling case, reportedly allowed the father to take the child ignoring the Moscow court orders.

The senior police officials including inspector general of police Kishan Kumar refused to comment on the issue. 'I cannot say anything on the issue,' Kumar stated.

Anastasia, who used to co-own a company in Goa in the name of Goa Help Centre, had arrived here along with her son to terminate the business partnership. She also spent two weeks in Bangalore at Satya Sai Baba Ashram in January this year along with her son.

'The client is legally divorced through appropriate process of Russian law and child and mother are travelling on a single passport,' Vikram Varma, counsel for Russian government in Goa, stated.

The Russian counsel has written to Kumar, superintendent of police north Bosco George and the police concerned seeking custody of the child.

'I don't know where my child is. The father has disappeared,' Anastasia said.

Making matters worse, Anastasia cannot move back to Russia as child and mother are traveling on a single passport. 'Neither the mother nor the child can return to Moscow without each other,' Varma said.

Anastacia plans to leave India for Moscow on Monday May 12.