6-year-old leaves home in anger, reunited with family 10 days later

The child, the only son of a labourer, was sent by his mother to the grocery store nearby, to buy onions and potatoes. When he returned, his parents scolded him for losing the ₹10 he received in change at the store. In a fit of rage, the boy left home

MUMBAI: A six-year-old boy from Naigaon, who had stormed out of his home in anger, was reunited with his parents on Monday after he spent days on the city’s streets. He was found by the police in Mahalaxmi and taken to the Children’s Home in Dongri.

6-year-old leaves home in anger, reunited with family 10 days later

The child, the only son of a labourer, was sent by his mother to the grocery store nearby, to buy onions and potatoes. When he returned, his parents scolded him for losing the ₹10 he received in change at the store.

In a fit of rage, the boy left home and walked to Kaman railway station, just five minutes away. By the time his parents realised he was gone, he had boarded a local train towards Vasai. The boy’s father Avinash Giri, 41, registered a kidnapping case with the Naigaon police. This was on October 24.

Sanjay Hazare, senior police inspector of the Naigaon police station, said they scoured hours of footage from more than 250 CCTV cameras in the area and nearby railway stations. “We spotted the boy boarding a train from Kaman to Vasai. We followed the trail through CCTV footage and found that he had travelled to Nalasopara from Vasai,” said Hazare.

Next, the boy was seen boarding a train from Nalasopara to Dadar. Days of looking through CCTV footage paid off. The boy was spotted again at Mahalaxmi station. “Scanning through CCTV footage of railway stations took us ten days, before we realised the boy had been taken to the Children’s Home in Dongri,” said Hazare.

“We thought our son had been kidnapped, and every second seemed like an hour. We couldn’t do anything but pray and have faith in the police,” said Giri.

Assistant police inspector Manisha Patil, investigating the case, said the police had posted a picture of the boy on various WhatsApp groups but drew a blank. On Monday, the Railway Protection Force (RPF) got back, saying they had located the child near Mahalakshmi railway station on October 27 and had taken him to the Children’s Home.

RPF officers said that although the boy looked bedraggled, he didn’t appear to be a beggar. He was fed by pavement-dwellers near Mahalaxmi station but since he could not provide his address or other details, they contacted the RPF.

“We assumed the child was part of a trafficking racket and took him to the Children’s Home,” said an RPF officer.