SIX YRS LATER, RUNAWAY GIRL UNITES WITH FAMILY, THANKS TO ACTIVISTS

: Six years ago, an 11-year-old girl ran away from her Prayagraj home after her parents scolded her. The efforts of local activists have helped reunite the girl, now 17, with her family.

With the maturity that six years can bring, the girl probably realised that she had erred in taking the rash step of running away from home. Till now, living in a children’s shelter home in Ghaziabad, the girl made a video explaining who and where she was, making a desperate appeal that her parents be traced in Prayagraj. In the video, she described how she had run off to Mumbai and was put in a children’s shelter there. A couple of years later, she was transferred to shelter home in Ghaziabad. The rest, as they say, is history.

The video went viral. Arshad Nawaz, a Prayagraj social activist received it around a week back. “In the video, the girl did not mention an address or a mobile number. She did mention the name of Mumfordganj locality. I tried to trace her parents but to no avail,” Nawaz said.

Nawaz then approached his friend Anwar, who traced the girl’s parents to Myorabad locality nearby. They had since shifted from Mumfordganj.

“The girl’s father, Saleem, had lodged a missing person’s complaint at the Colonelganj police station but even the police failed to locate Shaheen. Years passed and the family lost all hope of finding their lost daughter,” Nawaz said. Nawaz then took the help of juvenile court magistrate Saim Zaidi, who called his counterpart in Ghaziabad. The juvenile court magistrate in Ghaziabad, Madhu, traced Shaheen to Grace Care Home child shelter.

After tracing exactly where Shaheen was, he reached out to her family and informed them that their daughter had been found. Shaheen’s parents are now in Ghaziabad and have met their darling daughter. The family is expected to return to Prayagraj on Wednesday after completing a few formalities.