Missing for 22 years, how cops helped a man reunite with his family in UP

Chandigarh:

An eight-month investigation by a Haryana Police team has reunited a 29-year-old man with his family in Uttar Pradesh, more than two decades after he went missing, an official said on Monday.

Separated from his family at the age of seven after being kidnapped by someone and then abandoned, Amit grew up in different children's homes in Delhi.

Rajesh Kumar, assistant sub-inspector of the Haryana Police's Anti-Human Trafficking Unit (AHTU), who headed the investigation, said on Monday that Amit was recently reunited with his family after 22 years.

Amit's relentless search to find his family finally bore fruit after he came in contact with ASI Kumar a few months ago, when the officer had visited Delhi in connection with the case of a missing child.

With only fragmented memories of an oil mill in his village and a place called “Bala Chowk” shared by Amit, ASI Kumar embarked on a meticulous investigation to find his family.

Sharing details of the case, Mr. Kumar said that Amit's parents had separated over 22 years ago, after which he lived with his maternal grandfather in a village in Muzaffarnagar, India. Uttar Pradesh. After some time his father came and took Amit with him to Saharipur.

One day, while Amit was shopping for some items at a nearby store, he was allegedly kidnapped by someone.

“Amit, then aged 7, said he remembered someone taking him away and when he woke up he found himself on a train to Mumbai,” Mr Kumar said.

“Amit told me that when he arrived in Mumbai, sensing that the child was from a northern Indian state, someone put him on a train to Delhi. From there, his life took different turns,” Mr. Kumar told news agency PTI.

When Amit arrived in Delhi, he had no idea where he lived and kept wandering here and there before the Delhi Police spotted him and shifted him to a children's home in Alipur in the national capital , the officer said.

“After a few years, he was shifted to another children’s home in Delhi and then to another in Ghaziabad, where he started working as he grew up,” he said.

ASI Kumar said he visited Delhi in September 2023 in connection with the case of a missing child from Rewari, Haryana. During this visit, he met Amit who told him that he too had been missing for many years.

“Amit gave me slight clues about where he lived, taking the names of some chowks… He said there were bullock carts in the village and in the sugarcane fields .I tried to gather as many clues as possible by asking what kind of clothes people wore in his area,” the officer said.

“I started working on the clues that eventually led me to the village. When I went there, I asked if a child had gone missing 22 years ago. An old man who lived in the neighborhood said a child was missing but couldn't be found. He also gave me other clues that my team and I started working on,” he said.

The investigation eventually led the team to contact Amit's maternal uncle in Muzaffarnagar, who said that Amit's mother was now living in Ghumawti village in the same district.

The ASI and his team finally tracked down the woman and reunited Amit with his mother. Tears of joy rolled down Amit's mother's face as she embraced her long-lost son after two decades and the entire family expressed their gratitude towards the police team.

ASI Kumar and his team have so far helped reunite 800 missing people with their families over the past few years.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)