In 'Mrs. Chatterjee Vs Norway', Rani Mukerji essays role of Sagarika Chakraborty whose heart-breaking fight for kids' custody shook the world

The gripping story of a feisty mother's fight against a whole country to get her children back will soon be played out in the theatres on the big screen.

The upcoming film 'Mrs. Chatterjee Vs Norway', starring Rani Mukerji, has been inspired by a real story that shook the world in 2012.

The makers of 'Mrs. Chatterjee Vs Norway' released the film's first trailer on Thursday which shows Mukerji playing the lead, a fierce mother going against the Norwegian government to get her two kids back.

The film’s trailer starts with Mrs Chatterjee (Mukerji) shown enjoying her life with her husband and two kids, Shubh and Shuchi in Oslo. Life is good until one day, the government officials come and snatch Chatterjee’s kids away from her. The trailer captures the subsequent breakdown, the roller coaster of emotions and a mother’s crying plea to reunite with her little children.

While the trailer gives us a glimpse into the film which is set to release on March 17, here’s the story of Sagarika Chakraborty whose heart-breaking experience made headlines across the world.
The infamous battle of the Indian couple against Norway took place in 2011 in which the child welfare service, called Barnevarne, took away their two kids and placed them in foster care.

Chakraborty had never stepped outside of Birati in West Bengal before moving out of the country to Norway with her geophysicist husband Anurup Bhattacharya. The couple's life was turned upside down when the Child Welfare Services (CWS) took their kids on the ground of "neglect and emotional disconnect". The children were to remain in custody until they turned 18.

The woman, then in her late twenties, was called mentally unfit to care for her children. This led to an intense two-year-long legal battle between a simple woman from Birati and a whole country. Her strength, fierceness and a mother's pain saw the rights activists and even the Indian government having to step in to alleviate the situation.

During this long period, the children were sent to India in April 2012 by the CWS while her marriage broke down.

But she still couldn't reunite with her kids. In India, the children were in a paternal uncle's custody in Kulti as the CWS had branded Chakraborty "unfit to care for her children". This led to another fight as she ran from one part of the world to another, from courtrooms to specialists, to establish that she was mentally fit to take care of her own children.
After what must have felt like an eternity, the Calcutta High Court handed over the children to Chakraborty in January 2013.

"My son had some developmental issues while my daughter was still being breastfed when they were snatched away from me. Imagine my plight at that time," she was quoted as saying to The Times of India in an August 2022 exclusive interview.

Now all eyes are on whether the Ashhima Chibber directorial can capture the plight and suffering of a distraught mother on screen in the most realistic way and how well Mukherji essays the role on the big screen.

We will get to know only on March 17.