Loco pilot finds boy walking along tracks, reunites him with family

MUMBAI: Winning accolades comes naturally for Ravindra Kumar Saini. The boxing player, who has won medals at national-level railway tournaments, found a tired child stumbling along the railway tracks along a desolate stretch on the Panvel-Roha route and decided to take him under his wing. Employed with Central Railway as a locomotive pilot, Saini not only offered food and shelter to the lost 12-year-old, but also managed to contact his family within a day. It turned out that the boy was an orphan from Uttar Pradesh and had travelled to Panvel with his aunt from whom he got separated.
On July 11, Saini was getting goods offloaded from a train when he noticed the boy asking a pointsman for directions. “It was getting dark so I let the boy sit in my locomotive and eat from my tiffin. He took a nap soon after.”
It was past midnight when Saini’s duty ended and he woke the boy and asked about his family. The boy mentioned that he did not have parents and lived with his maternal grandparents at Budheda. He did not know their address or phone number. He decided to take the boy home. The boy had been walking helplessly along railway tracks for nearly a day before Saini found him.
An SOP issued by the ministry of railways requires such a lost child to be produced before a Child Welfare Committee within 24 hours of being found.
“The boy had mentioned that he had an Aadhaar card back home. So I thought of taking him to an Aadhaar enrolment centre and seek help,” he said. Meanwhile, Saini sent out a message about finding the boy and sent it with his background details on a WhatsApp group for loco pilots. Within a few hours, Saini started receiving calls.
“Finally, a resident of the boy’s village reached out,” said Saini. After much back and forth, the boy’s uncle offered to come to Mumbai on July 13.