Dream of reunion with mother in Pak dashed, teen will return to Bangladesh

BHOPAL: A teenage runaway might be sent back to his “heartless” stepmother in Bangladesh, instead of his mom in Karachi for whose love he audaciously sneaked into India with the hope of crossing over to Pakistan.

The 15-year-old had spent two-and-a-half years in a Bhopal shelter home after police caught him at the railway station in October 2013. He apparently came to India to escape his stepmother’s harassment following advice from friends that he could go to Pakistan to meet his mother whom his father had deserted in Karachi.

He will now be repatriated to Bangladesh, although it is not clear if he would be kept in a shelter home there or returned to his father.

“I will not go to my father’s home. I can’t explain my feelings but I hope that from Bangladesh I will go to my mother in Pakistan, which couldn’t be possible from India,” he said.

The boy will be handed over to a Kolkata-based NGO, Sanlaap, officials said on Thursday quoting a Madhya Pradesh child welfare committee order. Archana Sahay of Aarambh, the NGO that will take him to Kolkata, said his mother had told her it would be easy for her to take him back to Pakistan from Bangladesh. “Though he is not going to his mother in Pakistan, I am happy he is being sent back to Bangladesh. Everyone has put the best efforts to help him.”

Help poured in for the boy after HT published his story in September 2015. A young enthusiast from Bhopal helped locate his mother in Karachi and diplomatic channels opened later to facilitate the boy’s reunion. Pakistani human rights activist Ansar Burny stepped in as did foreign minister Sushma Swaraj and state women and child development minister Maya Singh. Indian high commissioner TCA Raghavan met his mother, Razia Begum, in Karachi while the Pakistani high commission’s first secretary Khadim Hussain met the boy in Bhopal.

But all efforts failed as his mother couldn’t prove the boy is her son. Without an identity proof, his citizenship couldn’t be established. Then the terrorist attack on the Pathankot airbase happened in January, virtually sealing the boy’s reunion with his mother.