The Hindu : A reunion after six years

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Mar 07, 2004

Kerala

Kerala

A reunion after six years

By Our Staff Reporter

KOTTAYAM, MARCH 6 . It was a leaf taken out of a screenplay for any potboiler -- long lost child, though she finds new parents, is desperate to return home. In her attempt, she once again loses her way, but is rescued by Good Samaritans. In the end, she is restored to her mother.

Eleven-year-old Ayshabi had boarded a train at Parappanangadi on February 18 with the aim of getting back to Andhra Pradesh. However, she had got into the wrong train and on the advice of other travellers alighted at Kottayam. The child was taken to the office of `Thanal', a women's group, for her upkeep by the police.

A few days later, one Aboobaker visited Thanal claiming to be her father. However, Ayshabi told her newly found protectors that he was not her father, and that she was taken to Kerala by him when she was five years of age. She belonged to Bhavanipuiram in Vijayawada, she said.

Then started the long search for her parents at Bhavanipuram. Using the good offices of a private firm there, the Thanal office-bearers traced her mother. Kumari, Ayshabi's mother, arrived here today to claim the child. According to her, her five-year-old daughter, Durga, had been missing for the past six years. Aboobaker, who was working in a hotel near her house, was also missing since that day.

Kumari is now a widow and Durga was her only daugther. According to the child, the man who had abducted her had changed her name and brought her up as his child for the past six years.

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