Gujarat child rights panel seeks report on Jain couple embracing monkhood, leaving behind daughter

Ahmedabad: The Gujarat child rights panel on Friday sought a report from civil and police administration about steps taken by a Jain couple, who are embracing monk-hood on Saturday to secure their three-year-old daughter’s future. The Madhya Pradesh-based Jain couple Sumit Rathore and his wife Anamika announced their decision last week to become monks under the ‘Shwetambar’ (white-clad) order of their religion and leave behind their daughter and renounce property worth Rs 100 crore. [caption id=“attachment_1042849” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. AP.[/caption] The “deeksha” (initiation) ceremony will take place at Surat under Sadhumargi Jain Acharya Ramlal Maharaj, their family members said in Surat. However, concerned about the future of the couple’s child, a person had recently filed an RTI query with the Gujarat state commission for protection of child rights (GSCPCR), its chairperson Jagruti Pandya said. “Through the RTI application, a person sought to know from us what will happen to the child if the couple become monks,” she said. Since, the ceremony is being held in Surat, the Surat police commissioner and the collector have been asked to find out what steps the couple have taken for their daughter’s future and submit that report to the GSCPCR for further action, Pandya said. While most of their family members, who have arrived in Surat, remained tight-lipped about the fate of the child, some others told media persons that the couple’s family members will take care of the child. Anamika’s father Ashok Chandaliya, a former Neemuch district president of the BJP, had last week said that he would take care of his grand-daughter. “I am not against my daughter Anamika becoming a nun,” he said. Rajendra Singh, Sumit’s father, who runs a factory manufacturing gunny bags for packaging cement, had also echoed a similar view. Sumit had worked in London before managing his family business in Neemuch while his engineer wife Anamika was earlier employed with a mining major. They were married for four years. Sumit’s cousin Sandip Rathore had earlier claimed that Sumit owns properties “running into Rs 100 crore”. Earlier this year, a Jain teenage boy from Gujarat, who had scored 99.99 percent in class XII Commerce examination, took the vow of monk-hood.