For the 10-year-old boy, who lived in a shelter for almost two years, his birthday this year was one he would never forget. the reason? He was reunited with his mother, whom he last saw in February 2023.
Cops found the mentally challenged boy wandering around the Anand Vihar bus terminal neglected in February. He could neither tell the name nor the address of his parents. He could only confidently say his name.
The policemen dropped him off at a shelter home in Ghaziabad. Looking at the pending case, the child lived there for about two years in the Narela industrial area before returning home after the police received a missing complaint.
On February 17, 2023, the boy’s mother reported him to the police two days after he went missing. “I searched for him for two days… My child is mentally challenged… He could not find his way back home,” said the mother.
DCP (North) Nidheen Walson said, “At that time Assistant Sub-Inspector (ASI) Balraj completed all the formalities and searched for the child in nearby police stations, bus terminals, railway stations, hospitals and shelter homes… but he could not find him.”
Lately, when police revisit unsolved cases, especially those of missing and abducted children, this particular issue seems to stick out.
Narela Industrial Area Police Station Station House Officer Manoj Kumar has rehabilitated Asai Balraj in the incident.
“We had no CCTV footage since she went missing… Last time, we couldn’t find her in any shelter home in Delhi. Almost on a whim, we started looking at shelter homes in Ghaziabad and other nearby areas across the border… We finally found a special adoption in Gharonda. We found him in the care of the agency,” said an official.
When the police asked the boy how he managed to come to Ghaziabad on his own, he said that he wanted to travel by bus. “So, he got into one and reached Anand Vihar. It was only after he got off the bus that he realized he was in trouble and did not know how to get home,” the officer said.
Meanwhile, 21 months later, the boy’s mother has given up all hope of finding him alive. “I thought someone might have kidnapped him and sold him… Sometimes I think someone might have killed him and dumped his body somewhere. Finally, I stopped waiting for any news from the police,” the 30-year-old said.
So when the police called her on December 3, asking her to come to Ghaziabad and identify her son, she didn’t believe it. “I thought it was a cruel joke they were playing on me. I thought my son was dead, so I thought they found another boy,” she said.
“He needed some convincing to come to Ghaziabad,” said the officer with a laugh. “But as soon as the boy saw her, he immediately ran to her,” he said.
On checking the Aadhaar card details of the boy and his parents, the police found that December 3 was also the boy’s 10th birthday. “We immediately got the cake and had a cake-cutting ceremony,” the official said. After returning home, the family had a grand dinner.
Mom has now made some strict rules, never to be broken. “He can’t leave my sight. I make him sit at home and read a book. He can play as much as he wants, but only indoors,” she said.