BENGALURU/HASSAN : “There’s not a single place I have not checked for my mother. Every day and every night I have felt guilty and responsible for her disappearance. Today, the joy of getting reunited with her has left me speechless and continuous tears of joy are rolling down my cheeks,” said 34-year-old Sunanda, who was reunited with her missing mother by the Border Securtiy Force in Karimganj district of Assam.
Jayamma (70), native of Madiganahalli in Hassan, had been missing for nearly two years. On October 18 around 5.30am, BSF personnel found her sitting all alone near a border outpost in Sutarkandi in Karimganj. She was talking to herself in a language which they did not know but they could understand that it was a south Indian language.
“Our jawans who saw her sitting alone asked her who she was and where she had come from. She was murmuring something in Kannada. Then they brought her to me and I spoke to her in Kannada as I am from Karnataka,” said Tahil Jabiulla, the jawan who helped Jayamma reach out to her family.Sunanda said her mother left home on December 25, 2016, as she was worried about Sunanda’s life and career. Sunanda is a transgender and had faced a lot of negative comments.
“I don’t know how my mother reached Assam but luckily she reached the border and BSF jawans helped her. She had 120gm gold on her but that was apparently robbed, and also she has walked till the border. She told me that she begged at places.“She has also been troubled by a few people who cut her hair
and beat her up. But thankfully today I found her,” said Sunanda.
“I didn’t have any job nor could I face people commenting about me being a transgender. My father would always blame my mother about this. There used to argue over this. That day she said she was going to the market and after this she never returned till we found her today,” said Sunanda.
Sunanda tried looking for her in many religious places thinking she must have gone to Dharmasthala, Kukke, Tirupati or any other city with temples. She apparently searched for her again when her father died of illness eight months ago.Jayamma, who is still reeling under the shock and is also extremely tired and weak from the stress of not eating properly for the last 18 months, reportedly told Sunanda that someone had robbed her of gold ornaments in Bengaluru she was wearing and put her on Hamsafar train, which runs between Bengaluru and Agartala.
Appreciating the efforts of the BSF jawans, M L Garg, BSF Deputy Inspector General, Silchar Range told TNIE, “Our constable Tahil and a few other jawans have done a commendable job. She was lucky enough to reach here. After speaking to her, Tahil prepared a small video interaction and took some pictures and uploaded them on social media. Also, we were in touch with Hassan police through our Company Commander Chotu Lal, Assistant Commandant.”
Meanwhile, one Santosh of the Madaganahalli village panchayat identified her on the social media on October 20 and approached the local police who were already in touch with Chotu Lal. After this, a small video chat was arranged between the daughter and mother.
“It was like a scene from a Bollywood movie. Both of them were crying inconsolably. We were also in tears looking at them crying. We picked Sunanda from Guwahati and I dropped them back till Guwahati by road,” explained Tahil. The BSF officials then asked Sunanda to come and take her mother home.
On Monday, Sunanda, travelled to Guwahati with her friend Sania by air and brought her mother back to Bengaluru by flight on Tuesday late night. The family then left to their native village.“I will never forget what BSF has done to reunite us. We will always be grateful to them. I had no one in this world except for my mother,” Sunanda cried.