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67-year-old, lost at Kumbh Mela, united with family after five years
Lost five years ago at Kumbh Mela in Allahabad, and picked up from the roads in Ajmer by an old-age home worker last year, Sataram (67) was reunited with his family
Lost five years ago at Kumbh Mela in Allahabad, and picked up from the roads in Ajmer by an old-age home worker last year, Sataram (67) was reunited with his family in Barmer on Friday.
Sataram’s reunion was made possible by the efforts of Apna Ghar old-age home, members of District Legal Services Authority (DLSA) and police officials of Gidan in Barmer.
On January 31, 2017, Sataram was brought to the old-age home in Ajmer owned by Apna Ghar, an organisation that takes care of homeless and abandoned persons and tries to rehabilitate them.
After spending a few months in Ajmer and Bharatpur homes of the organisation, he was brought to the Bikaner home on September 21, 2017. “We would ask him repeatedly about where he came from, or where his family was, but he would not say anything, not even his name. We named him Kundan,” said Gyan Singh, manager of the Bikaner home.
Singh added that the old-age home officials had lost hope of knowing his identity or ever reuniting him, but one day people from DLSA came and when they asked him, he told them that his name was Sataram and he was a native of Pareu village in Barmer.
“Surprised, we asked him why he did not share the details with us all this while. He said that when he saw the ‘coat-wearing’ DLSA team, he thought they were influential people and only they could reunite him with his family,” said Singh.
Coincidentally, the driver of the DLSA team was from Barmer and quickly contacted the police station under the jurisdiction of which Pareu village came. The officials at the police station confirmed that a missing report of Sataram had been lodged in August 2012. A photograph of Sataram was sent on WhatsApp and his family, informed by the police already, confirmed that he was their long-lost member.
“The moment they met and hugged, they started crying. They would just hug each other and kept crying for a long while,” said Prahalad Ram, head constable at the Gidan police station, who accompanied Sataram’s adopted son, their neighbour and a few others to Bikaner and was a witness to the reunion. “Paanch saal baad mera shani utra hai (My misfortune has ended after five years),” Prahalad quoted Sataram as saying.
Sardara Ram (38), Sataram’s son and a farmer, said his father had gone with an acquaintance for pilgrimage to Haridwar, Jammu and later to Kumbh Mela where he got lost. “The acquaintance returned but my father did not. We put up posters, sent information everywhere, but to no avail,” said Sardara.
“I won’t even let him go out of the house now. Some 100 people came to see him after they came to know that he has returned.”
