She won a court case, but lost her son

By Our Staff Reporter

BANGALORE, NOV. 10. Separated parents, both foreign nationals, a husband who has disappeared with their six-year-old son, and the mother searching everywhere for the boy. It has all the makings of a TV serial, but has happened in real life in Bangalore.

Ms. Katherine Peczerwoj, a French national, married an Italian 16 years ago. When she gave birth to a boy six years ago at Puttaparthi, she never had an inkling that her son would be emotionally and physically removed from her. She blames her husband, Mr. Riccardo Macri de Marino, for it.

Although she has won a legal battle with an Italian court ordering ``sole custody'' of her son, Govinda-Mauro, to her, she has not been able to trace her child for a month now. The couple were living at Sai Colony near Whitefield to attend the bhajans and to have darshan of Satya Sai Baba. Her child, who was in the custody of her husband, has been missing along with Mr. Marino. She has lodged a complaint with Kadugodi police in this connection.

The couple had been living in India for six months and in Italy for six months since 1999. The couple did not enjoy a happy relationship, and she claims that her husband was not allowing her and her son to freely interact with each other. She claims that he prevented the boy from playing with other children and even controlled his food habits and fed him only raw vegetables to make him a ``yogi''. The boy was prohibited from watching even cartoons on television. The boy had to take his father's permission to talk or interact with her, she alleges.

She complains that her husband opposed sending the boy to a school in Italy. However, she managed to put the child to a school on Old Madras Road early this year, despite Mr. Marino's opposition.

She has told the City and Bangalore District police in her letters that her husband had removed her son from the school without her authorisation and had taken him away to an undisclosed location while she was away in France. Her husband had been telling her son that she had abandoned him and had flown to France. But the truth, according to her, was that she had gone to her country only to seek help from friends to sort out her family problems.

In the letter, she told the police that when she came back to Bangalore a month ago, armed with a court order for sole custody of her son, she thought she could fly back with her son in a day or two. But she has not yet been able to find Govinda.

Thanks to Indian bureaucratic delays, it took her a fortnight's time to lodge a complaint with the Kadugodi police about the disappearance of her son. It was only on Thursday that she could finalise a look-out notice for her son. She handed over dozens of copies of the notices to the Kadugodi police with a request to despatch them to different parts of the country to trace her son.

Ms. Paczerwoj alleges that police have not interrogated some of the persons who could have helped in tracing her son. She wonders if she has to go from city to city looking for her son as the authorities were not doing their bit.

Her biggest worry is that Mauro-Govinda's father could flee the country with the boy. The Commissioner of Police, Mr. H.T.Sangliana, has assured her that he would ask the international airports in the country to be on the look out for them and intimate the police if they made such an attempt.

She has told the police in her letters that the Interpol in France and Italy were on the look out for her child. Her only request to the police is to ensure that her husband does not disappear with her son. If that happens, ``I will be destroyed forever,'' she says. Ever since she left India six months ago to seek help from her friends back home, she has not been able to speak to her son, despite several attempts. Even the presents she sent for him were refused.

The boy speaks French, Italian, English, and a smattering of Kannada. She promises a reward to anybody giving information about her son that will help her trace him.

Govinda-Mauro seen with his father, Mr. Riccardo Macri de Marino.

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