Ganjam man returns home after missing for 50 years

BERHAMPUR: Fifty-one years after he boarded a train to Mumbai only to disappear without a trace, Simanchal Rana returned to Sahadev Tikarapada, a nondescript village in Ganjam’s Digapahandi block on Thursday much to the joy of family members who had presumed the 70-year-old dead.

Simanchal was traced in Burhanpur of Madhya Pradesh. In 1970, he had left his village for Mumbai in search of work. The plan was to return home to his wife and baby daughter after earning enough for the family. But fate had other plans.

Villagers said Simanchal hailed from an affluent family with landed property. He had an elder brother and two younger sisters. When he was in his early twenties, his family married him off to a girl of the nearby Palaspur village in 1968. The couple had a girl and everyone in the family was happy. 

When Simanchal was young, he had suffered an injury on his head due to which he often remained absent-minded. Since he was whiling away his time without doing any work, his father-in-law asked him to go to Mumbai in search of a job. In 1970, he boarded a train to Maharashtra at Berhampur railway station, recalled Manoj Patnaik, a fellow villager.

In Mumbai, he worked for a couple of days with a contractor but unable to adapt to the new surroundings, he decided to return. However, instead of Berhampur, he boarded a Madhya Pradesh-bound train and reached Burhanpur where he spent the valuable 50 years of his life. Back home, Simanchal’s family launched a frantic search for him. Besides scouting various places across the State, they visited Maharashtra and Assam in search of him only to return dejected. Presuming him dead, family members had lost all hope of meeting Simanchal again.

Last year, owner of Burhanpur-based NGO Roti Bank Sanjay Shinde found Simanchal living as a destitute. He gave him shelter and food and tried to trace his family. Sanjay came to know that after alighting at Burhanpur, Simanchal was in police custody for travelling without a ticket. After his release, he did menial jobs including washing dishes in hotels. Over time, he lost strength to work and lived on footpath.

After getting to know about a place called Tikarapada in Odisha from Simanchal, Sanjay contacted his nephew Kammal Rathie, a Cuttack-based businessman. A volunteer of Indiacares, a group of professionals engaged in assisting people affected in the Covid-19 pandemic, Rathie contacted senior IPS officer Arun Bothra who in turn spoke to Ganjam SP Brijesh Rai. Once Ganjam police traced Simanchal’s house in Sahadev Tikarapada, a video call was made to Sanjay and the family recognised the man.

Rathie arranged the train tickets and Simanchal’s nephew Dhruba went to Burhanpur and brought his uncle back. Expressing gratitude to all the people who helped in reuniting Simanchal with his family, Dhruba said they were overjoyed on his uncle’s return.

During his absence, Simanchal’s wife and daughter had passed away. His family consists of elder brother Brundaban, his sister-in-law, nephew Dhruba and two married sisters. A stout young man when he left Sahadev Tikarapada, Simanchal now walks with a walking stick. But he is visibly happy in the midst of his loved ones.