New Delhi: The Ministry of External Affairs summoned German Ambassador Philipp Ackermann and called for early repatriation of an Indian baby girl who has been under foster care in Berlin for more than 20 months.

Then seven-month-old Ariha Shah was placed in the custody of Germany’s Youth Welfare office in September 2021, after an injury was brought to the authorities' attention by a hospital. The German authorities had placed the child under foster care, alleging harassment by her Indian parents.

At his weekly media briefing, Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said that Ackerman was summoned this week and India's concerns regarding Ariha were unequivocally conveyed to him

"We have accorded high priority to this case. We believe that the child’s cultural rights and her rights as an Indian are being infringed upon by her being placed under German foster care. The German ambassador to India was summoned earlier this week and our concerns were clearly conveyed to him. We have also asked for early return of the child to India,” Bagchi said.

However, he did not give any additional details on when the ambassador was summoned to the foreign ministry.

India has been highlighted the need for the child's swift repatriation, based on her being in the same linguistic, religious, cultural and social environment.

A day earlier, opposition women lawmakers, including Congress’s Rajani Patil, NCP leaders Supriya Sule and Vandana Chavan, Samajwadi Party Rajya Sabha member Jaya Bachchan and Shiv Sena (UBT) Rajya Sabha member Priyanka Chaturvedi had met external affairs minister S. Jaishankar over the case.

Ariha’s mother Dhara Shah had been in parliament on Tuesday to gather support among parliamentarians to push for the release of her daughter from foster care in Germany.

“Due to cultural differences, they have taken a strict stand and we want to speak against that,” Bachchan told PTI.

On June 13, a district court in Germany had denied custody to Dhara and Bhavesh Shah based on two injuries Ariha had suffered in 2021 – one on her head and one in her genital area. Though a case of assault was filed against her parents, it was later changed to negligence, and finally dropped altogether. In February 2022, the case again Ariha's parents was closed. However, her parents were not granted custody, and the courts have also made the German welfare system, rather than the Indian one, her guardian.

Ariha is now more than two years old.

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