Slumdog Child Artist Lured by Fake Adoption
An undercover operation by a UK newspaper has shaken up the world of Rubina Ali and her family. The father of the child actress who played the role of the youngest version of the leading lady ‘Latika’ in Slumdog Millionaire has firmly denied trying to sell her in exchange of money for adoption.
The News of the World said Mr Rafiq Qureshi, father of the nine year old child artist, had demanded £200,000 from a wealthy family from Dubai who wanted to adopt his daughter. In fact, these were the newspaper’s reporters posing as them.
The BBC reported an appalled Mr Qureshi accusing the media of making fun of their poverty. Rubina’s father, a carpenter in Mumbai, said,” They tricked us into this fakery but we came out unscathed.”
The Sting Operation
One of the staff members of The News of the World contacted Mr Qureshi as a representative of a wealthy Arab sheikh, keen on adopting Rubina and taking her to Dubai.
As per the newspaper, around £50,000 compensation was demanded by Rajan Moore, Mr Qureshi’s brother-in-law, who is more fluent in English. In a later meeting, Mr. Qureshi is tried to increase this amount to £200,000 ($292,000). The newspaper said that he was unsatisfied with the money received from the Oscar-winning film, Slumdog Millionaire, and wanted to find a way out of life in the slums. Photographs of Mr. Wureshi and his daughter, Rubina in meeting with the reporters were also published in The News of the World.
On Monday, Mr Qureshi agreed to talk to the website of BBC News. A lengthy interview revealed his deep contempt over the attempt to trap his family into a situation of “great temptation.” He firmly denied any allegations about accepting a deal to give up his daughter for adoption or selling her.
BBC reported that the two parties met three times from Thursday to Saturday, after several phone calls were made by the undercover reporters requesting a meeting with Rubina and her father.
“In the phone calls they said a wealthy Arab couple had been moved to see the plight of Rubina on al-Jazeera TV. The sheikh and his wife were very upset to see their plight and decided to help them out. And then we agreed to meet them”, said Mr. Qureshi.
He also told BBC that he had met two men and a “memsaab”, referring to a white woman in common Indian Language.
In all, three meetings were conducted, two in Mumbai hotels and one in the family’s hut in the Bandra slums where the reporters came for a visit. It was during the last meeting on Saturday afternoon that Mr Qureshi claims to have talked to someone on the phone, who expressed gratitude for letting him adopt Rubina.
Mr. Qureshi said, “They made a call to someone, introducing him as the memsaab’s husband, the sheikh saab, and asked me to talk to him. In broken Hindi he thanked me for letting Rubina come to Dubai to live. It was then it occurred to me they were making a deal on my child. I put the phone down and told them we were leaving the hotel.”
The Pull Back
Inspite of this, the family stayed for tea with the reporters.
“At this time they went to the memsaab and came back to us with an offer of 500,000 rupees as an advance. We refused, but they kept saying if we accepted the offer the money can be arranged in five minutes”, said Mr. Qureshi.
He told BBC that the family went back home after this and “when I woke up on Sunday morning the story on me was on all the TV channels”. Mr. Qureshi says it shocked him to realize that the three people he met were actually reporters.
“I switched off my mobile phone because I knew there will be calls from the media and I didn’t have any faith in the media after what I went through on the weekend.”
“They played dirty with us, but we didn’t accept any money from them. My daughter is not for sale.”
Dinesh, a key person present at the meetings, had acted as middleman to the parties. He said he had talked to the people who had approached Rubina’s family for adoption due to Mr. Qureshi’s weak English. Also denying any confirmation of a deal to sell Rubina, he rejected accusations that he had tried to convince Mr. Qureshi into accepting the deal. He also expressed his fears that the story would bring bad name to Rubina’s family.
The media claims have surprised Mr Qureshi’s neighbours in the slums. An outraged Mohammed Shakeel said, “We know how much he loves his daughter. We may be poor but we have a lot of self-respect. We don’t sell our children no matter how big the lure is.”
“Talking to Rubina was unethical on the part of the media. Local police and child welfare committees should immediately look into the matter and take appropriate action against whoever is guilty,” said Priti Patkar, a director of Prerna, an NGO for child welfare.
Shireen Miller, an official for Delhi-based Save the Children organization said that child abuse and exploitation formed a “major issue in this part of the country and there needs to be strict laws to protect such families from agents and middlemen”.
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