Cops, Google maps help divyang boy reunite with family

Noida: A 16-year-old differently-abled boy who had left home in a village in Sambhal district three months ago and landed in a Noida shelter home was on Wednesday reunited with his family, officials said. The reunion was made possible following a counselling session at the shelter home and efforts of the Noida Police’s Anti-Human Trafficking Unit (AHTU), who traced the boy’s remote village using Google maps, they said. Three months ago, the boy stated that he had left his home in Manni Kheda village of Aligarh district without informing his parents and wandered his way to reach Noida, a police spokesperson said. “He landed here at Sai Kripa Shelter Home and during a counselling session recently was asked about his family. The differently-abled boy somehow managed to tell the names of his mother, father and village to the counsellor,” the spokesperson said. “After this, the AHTU in-charge inspector Devendra and his team got to work and even used Google maps to locate the village mentioned by the boy. The boy had said the village was in Aligarh but it turned out that the village was in Sambhal district,” the official said. However, the task was still not complete. To ensure that the child actually belonged to Manni Kheda village, the AHTU team contacted the local Nakhasa police station in Sambhal and through them reached out to the village headman. “When the information was shared with the headman, he confirmed that a boy of the same name as this one lived in the village but had gone missing three months ago,” the police spokesperson said.