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A science fair photo reunites sisters after 4 yrs in Hyderabad
Two orphan sisters, who were separated from their youngest sister in 2017, have been reunited after matching their DNA, officials said
Two orphan sisters, who were separated from their youngest sister in 2017, have been reunited after matching their DNA, officials said.
A photo from a science fair and efforts of Hyderabad district officials and Telangana police helped the reunion. The 14-year-old and 12-year-old elder sisters finally stepped into a foster home in the city on Sunday along with their 8-year-old sister.
The elder sisters were living with their father in Kukatpally while the youngest was living with her grandmother in Ameenpur.
“After their father, a daily wage labourer, expired in 2017, locals handed over the two girls to an orphanage in Secunderabad,” said Akeshwar Rao, district welfare officer, Hyderabad, who played a key role in the reunion of the siblings.
“Around the same time, their grandmother, who was begging in Ameenpur, passed away. The police found the eight-year-old roaming on the streets and shifted her to a CCI (child care institute) in that locality. In April 2020, she was shifted to a government-run social welfare institution in Ameerpet,” Rao said.
The efforts to re-unite the girls started after the two elder sisters identified one of the girls in a picture as their younger sibling.
“Earlier this year, we had a science fair. Some photos of the event were circulated to all the orphanages. This is when the two sisters told the caretakers that one of the girls in a photograph resembled their lost sister. On many occasions earlier, they had shared stories of their younger sister with their caretakers,” Rao said.
“We checked the features mentioned by the girls about their sister. We then took the girl identified in the picture to meet the two. The eight-year-old was not able to recognise them.”
The district welfare officer then requested Hyderabad collector Sweta Mohanty and commissioner of women development & child welfare D Divya to conduct a DNA test of all the girls, who gave their nod.
“In a week’s time, DNA reports confirmed that three were sisters. We immediately shifted all the girls to the orphanage in Ameerpet last Sunday,” Rao said.
“Every child in an orphanage craves for love and attention and the children are very happy to be reunited. They will soon be going to the same school,” he said.
This is one of the many success stories of Telangana police who rescue children as part of Operation Muskaan. The initiative was launched in 2015 and so far over 22,000 children have been rescued from streets, factories and brick kilns.
Special teams identify children from railway and bus stations, religious places and footpaths.
Most of the kids, who hail from Odisha, Jharkhand and Nepal, are rescued and reunited with their families. The rest are sent to welfare or rescue homes. Two such drives were conducted in Hyderabad this year-- 388 children were rescued from the streets in January and 194 in July.
