Nagpur: Three years after he went missing from UP, boy reunited with family

Three years after he went missing from Jaunpur district of Uttar Pradesh, a 15-year-old boy with hearing and speech impairment was restored to his family on August 5 with the help of Aadhaar identification.

Shivam Chauhan had gone missing from Etori village under the jurisdiction of Sonikpur police station. His story, however, ended on a happy note, with his father Ramlauten arriving here to take him back home on August 3.

This comes weeks after a 19-year-old mentally challenged boy, Mohammad Amir, was restored to his family in Jabalpur after seven years of foster care by a Hindu family here. Amir’s identity was established when his foster parents tried to get his Aadhaar card done. After frequent rejections, authorities at the government Aadhaar Seva Kendra (ASK) here investigated his case to find that his Aadhaar card was already made years ago. This helped identify his family, leading to Amir being reunited with his parents on July 12.

“After Amir’s case, we were happy to have found Shivam’s family through Aadhaar database. These cases underscore the utility of the system of Aadhaar registration of citizens,” said Centre Manager of Nagpur ASK Anil Marathe.

“Shivam landed at Nagpur railway station about three years ago. Unable to establish his identity because he was hearing and speech impaired, the railway police handed him over to Government Children’s Home for Boys. Superintendent of the children’s home Vinod Daberao approached us for help on June 16 after repeated failure of Shivam’s Aadhaar card-making process. Like in Amir’s case, we sent his details to the Aadhaar centre in Bengaluru. It was revealed that Shivam’s Aadhaar card was already made. After tallying his biometrics and photographs, his family was traced to Etori village in Jaunpur district,” said Marathe.

Daberao contacted Sonikpur police station and provided Shivam’s Aadhaar card details to seek his parents’ contact. Soon, the family was informed about their lost son.

Asked why they couldn’t trace his origin for three years, Daberao said, “Proper communication with him was impaired. He didn’t understand sign language, so the language expert that we had brought to communicate with him couldn’t extract anything substantial.”

When contacted, Ramlauten said, “The whole family is overwhelmed by Shivam’s return. We are thankful to people in Nagpur for keeping him safe and healthy.”

The family did not register any police complaint after Shivam went missing. “We searched for him for six months but didn’t file a police complaint as we thought it would be of no help,” Ramlauten, a fruit vendor, said.

Asked how Shivam might have landed up in Nagpur, Ramlauten said, “His three elder brothers worked in Mumbai. So he might have thought that he would also go to Mumbai. He might have boarded a train from Mehrava railway station, about 1.5 km from our village.”

Ramlauten and wife Usha have now decided to put Shivam in a school for hearing and speech impaired children. “It will ensure that he can communicate with anyone,” Ramlauten said.