Abandoned Sikh boy's uncle found

THE mystery surrounding the abandoned 11-year-old boy found wandering the streets of Southall last March appeared closer to being solved today.

Ealing social services have received conformation that DNA from Gurinder Singh matches that of farmer Kuldeep Singh, in India's Punjab region, who says he is the child's uncle.

The boy, who speaks no English, has been placed with a foster family in west London but has expressed a wish to return to India as soon as he is allowed. The case will now be submitted to the High Court for further examination and a decision on whether Gurinder should be returned to India.

The DNA tests have proved Gurinder comes from a family in Hoshiarpur, about 100 miles from Chandigarh.

His mother is believed to be in France after leaving him in the biggest Sikh neighbourhood in Britain and his father, an illegal immigrant, is in Germany.

Police believe both might be guilty of flouting EU immigration laws and that is behind the reason why the child was abandoned and their failure to claim him. An investigation into whether the boy's case might have been linked to illegal trafficking from India has also been launched.

India's external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee told Punjab MP Avinash Rai Khanna, in a letter, that DNA tests had been carried out last autumn and the results had been confirmed to him by the High Commission in Aldwych.

Mr Mukherjee wrote: "Our High Commission at London has informed that as per DNA report of 27 October 2008, Kuldeep Singh has been identified as the paternal uncle of Gurinderjit Singh.

"The child - at present under interim care of Ealing council, London - has desired to return to India to stay with his paternal uncle.

"A local court has consented that the council should make plans for the child's future and send him back to India."

The happy uncle said today: "We are overjoyed with this news. We are eagerly waiting for him to return and his ordeal to end."

Gurinder claimed he had been in Britain for three years but did not know anyone from the Sikh community.

He told social workers that he stayed in a three-bedroom house watching TV with an uncle but was unable to say where.

Speaking in his native Punjabi, he told social workers that all he remembered was that he travelled by bus to Southall, where his uncle left him.

But police believe he may have been fed the story by his anxious mother, who may be illiterate, and believed the simple story would be accepted at face value by British authorities.

Gurinder then walked into a clinic and sat watching TV until staff realised he was by himself and raised the alarm.

Since the discovery, he has been placed with a Punjabi foster family and is reported to have settled and be in good health, although hoping for a return to India.

An Ealing council spokeswoman said: "It is expected that in the next couple of months a hearing will be held in the High Court to review his long-term care."