For a 10-year-old child who had been living in a shelter for over two years, his birthday this year was unforgettable. What’s the reason? He was reunited with his mother, who he last saw in February 2023.
Last February, police found the mentally challenged youngster wandering around the Anand Vihar bus terminal unattended. He couldn’t disclose his parents’ names or his address. He could only confidently state his name.
The youngster would stay there for nearly two years before being allowed to return home to the Narela Industrial Area after the police discovered a missing person’s complaint while searching.
Two days after the boy disappeared, his mother reported him missing to police on February 17, 2023. “I searched for him for two days. My child is mentally challenged. He wouldn’t have been able to make his way home,” the mother explained. The DCP, Nidhin Valsan, stated, “At that time, Assistant Sub-Inspector (ASI) Balraj had completed all the formalities and tried for the child in nearby police stations, bus stop locations, and railway.
When the police recently investigated unresolved cases, particularly those involving missing and kidnapped children, this one stood out. Manoj Kumar, the Station House Officer of the Narela Industrial Area Police Station, reinstated ASI Balraj in the case.
We had no CCTV footage from when he went missing. We couldn’t find him last time in any shelter in Delhi. We began searching for shelter homes in Ghaziabad and other places across the border on a whim. We eventually discovered him in the care of a specialized adoption agency in Gharonda,” stated an officer.
When the authorities asked how he got to Ghaziabad on his own, the child stated he wanted to take a bus. “So he boarded one and traveled to Anand Vihar. He just realized he was in trouble when he got off the bus and didn’t know how to get home,” the officer explained.