Torn between two families

Ahmedabad: The parents of a Muslim child who was separated from them during some of India's worst religious riots six years ago are demanding that his Hindu foster parents give him back.

Mohammed Salim and Jebunnisa Sheikh were separated from their son, Muzaffar, during religious rioting that killed about 1,000 people in the western state of Gujarat in early 2002.

The boy, then 2 years old, was taken in by a local Hindu family which says it found him wandering and homeless.

A court in the western city of Ahmedabad ruled in favour of the foster family on Wednesday after the boy, who is now 9, told the court that he didn't want to leave them. The ruling was reported in local newspapers on Friday.

The Sheikhs plan to appeal the verdict in a higher court. "We desperately searched for our child and finally gave it up as the will of the Almighty," Mohammed Salim told reporters.

But now that the child has been located, "we will not be parted from him," he said. "I am very obliged to the family which looked after our baby all these years, but I will knock on every judicial door to get my son back."

The foster mother of the boy, who now uses the name Vivek Patni, refused to give him up.

"He is all that I have got and I will not part with him," said Meena Patni.

A government-led investigation located the boy and a DNA test earlier this month proved that the boy was the Sheikhs' missing child.

More than 400 people are still missing from the 2002 religious violence across Gujarat, according to Teesta Setalvad, who heads Citizens for Justice and Peace, a rights group working with riot victims.