BHUBANESWAR: A differently-abled child’s Aadhaar card helped him reunite with his parents after six long years in Keonjhar district, around 700 km from his village in Bihar. Mintu Kumar, a deaf and dumb child of Shahpur village in Bihar’s Darbhanga district had arrived in Keonjhar town in June 2017. How he reached Keonjhar is still a mystery.
Mintu was spotted by locals but he was unable to speak due to hearing and speech impairment. The child welfare committee (CWC) was alerted about the minor boy, aged around 14, and he was sent to a shelter home run by an NGO Voluntary Organisation for Rural Improvement (VORI) in Telkoi.
The boy attempted to communicate with the staff of the shelter home through hand gestures, which they could barely understand. He was never able to reveal his address or any details about his family. His ordeal of staying away from his parents continued after the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020.
However, a breakthrough was achieved as Keonjhar CWC officials recently reviewed the cases relating to children staying away from their families. They found five such cases including that of Mintu. The CWC officials took a chance and tried to ascertain if Mintu is an Aadhaar card holder.
Mintu was recently taken to chief district medical office (CDMO) in Keonjhar for examination and later his Aadhaar biometric (fingerprint) verification was carried out. The officials were amazed after coming to know that Mintu was already an Aadhaar card holder and hailed from Bihar.
As per information collected from the Aadhaar card, they contacted their counterparts in Darbhanga who confirmed Mintu is the son of one Ram Kishore Jadhav. They informed Ram Kishore of his only child’s whereabouts. Bounding with joy of finding his son, Ram rushed to Keonjhar.
“Mintu was not able to reveal anything as he is differently-abled and illiterate too. His father reached Keonjhar on Tuesday to take him back. They have reached home,” Keonjhar CWC chairperson Dr Bibhuti Bhusan Dash told The New Indian Express.
An ecstatic Ram Kishore thanked the authorities and the NGO for looking after his son all these years. Officials said it does not seem like an incident of trafficking and Mintu possibly reached Keonjhar by boarding a bus or train.