The US child abuse activist remembered the late Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Thursday, saying that, as a woman with an iron will and also for her help and being very proactive in the case involving the 2017 death of three-year-old Indian girl Sherin Mathews.
Sherin Mathews was a 3-year-old adopted girl from India who was found dead in a culvert near her home in Richardson, Texas in 2017, the American Bazaar reported.
Her father Wesley Mathews has been charged in the case and is currently serving a life sentence in the US.
Shanna Poteet, a Texas-based child abuse activist, said “It was Sushma Swaraj who defended Sherin (Mathews) and began an investigation in India into her death. Sushma Swaraj was also the one who was involved in revoking Wesley and Sini Mathews NRI cards…”
She further added, “Sherin’s death attracted the attention of the Indian government and then External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj took a keen interest in the case and also instructed the Indian mission in Houston to make sure that the Indian toddler received justice.”
“India revoked the Overseas Citizenship of India (OCI) immigration status of Wesley and Sini (Sherin’s adoptive parents) after Sherin’s death, she added.
At that time she had also directed that the investigation in the case should be thorough and from then on all passports for adopted children from India would be issued only after approval from the ministry of women and child development.
Sushma Swaraj was admitted to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in a critical condition On Tuesday evening. She was brought to AIIMS by her family and was straightaway taken to the emergency ward, soon after which, she died.
Swaraj had put out a tweet in the evening congratulating Prime Minister Narendra Modi after the Centre’s bold move to revoke special status for Jammu and Kashmir and bifurcate the border state into two Union Territories secured Parliament’s approval.