News: Man missing for Five years from U.P. reunited with his family

Man missing for Five years reunited with his family

By Special Correspondent: 

3rd December of every year is celebrated as “The International Day of Persons with Disabilities” .  It is to  celebrate the abilities of people with disabilities and to promote their rights to equal opportunities, dignity, and well-being. It helps people to  understand disability issues and gain support to ensure that their rights to well-being, dignity and equal opportunities are practiced. Directorate for welfare of the Differently abled,  one of  the key  department of Government of Tamilnadu,  has been vociferous in safeguarding their rights and has introduced various welfare schemes to make sure that  the differently abled persons are in equal status to the other people. 

Udavum Karangal has also been serving the differently abled for the last 40 years by ensuring that the mentally ill on the streets are rescued, rehabilitated and reunited with their families. In these lines  recently  a rehabilitated mentally ill person was reunited with his family to Uttarpradesh after 5 years of missing. 

On 17th Jan 2020, Mr.Vidyaakar, Founder of Udavum Karangal  received a call from a well wisher saying that a man wandering on the main road near Puzhuthiwalkam Main Road for the past two weeks and  needs help. 

Mr. Mohan a  Social worker of that NGO rescued him  and admitted him to their Home Shanthivanam.  He was given  a bath, provided clothes to wear and provided a sumptuous lunch. Their experienced social worker Mr. Srinivasa Rao while counselling him could get his name  as Rizwan Khan. Constant monitoring was done as the patient was non-cooperative, with aggressive attitude and not mingling with others. He is an epileptic patient too. He was handicapped in his right hand and could not use it.

The NGO spokesman said that "we sent  information about him along with photo in facebook but there was no feedback. When a new patient arrives we  register them for  Aadhar card though they may be  mentally ill patients.  So we had one day taken Rizwan  to E Sevai Maiyam at Thiruverkadu and his application was rejected.    But when his fingers were placed on the bio-metric  his details like name and address appeared in the monitor .  We could get the original Aadhar from the computer from where we could get many a details.   His village was Araji,  Thuthibari Panchayat, Maharajganj District, Uttarpradesh. Based on which we found a phone number  of Mr. Kyamuddin Ansari who is having a lodge in that place." When they told him about Rizwan he immediately shared the number of his brother Mr. Sulaiman who was at Ahmadabad.  The NGO personal also made a video call to his brother on 28th Nov and he confirmed that he was his elder brother and was missing for the past 5 years. He jumped in joy and  immediately booked a flight to come to Chennai to receive his brother.    

Mr. Sulaiman , the brother of the patient came to Udavum Karangal on 29 November and met his brother Rizwan Khan. That was a tearful reunion. On arriving at UdavumKarangal’s Home at Thiruverkadu, Sulaiman  gave complete details about the family and the missing of his brother for the past  5 years.

“Rizwan was the eldest son of Mr. Kuresh and Mrs. Nasimum.  He had 5 siblings i.e.  4 sisters and a brother ( Mr. Sulaiman).  He is not educated and was not working as well. His parents got him married to a girl from a nearby village in April 2019.  He had mental illness from his childhood and was under psychiatric treatment in a local hospital .  One day on 22 October 2019, he went missing from his house and could not be traced till date.  They had lodged a FIR with Thuthibari Panchayat Police Station for missing of Rizwan.  On missing of Rizwan his wife went away to her parents place and has also got herself married.  

Mr.Rizwan Khan  was restored on 29th November  2024 in the presence of the Founder Secretary UdavumKarangal, Mr.Vidyaakar who gave them free medicines for a month and counselling for future treatment.  Mr. Sulaiman, brother of Rizwan thanked the team of social workers and the Founder for reuniting him back to his family.