Aadhaar card helps family reunite with 14-year-old runaway after 2 years
“It was my thumb impression that revealed my identity at Gurdaspur ‘ashram’,” says Lovepreet, now at his home with his mother.
Two years after he ran away from home and boarded a train to Shimla, an illiterate 14-year-old boy from Maur, Lovepreet Singh, is back with his family, courtesy his Aadhaar card record.
Lovepreet was fortunate that he first got to stay at a dharamshala in Shimla, before officials with the child protection wing of the state government there guessed his district. He was then sent to the Children Home in Gurdaspur. It was when authorities at the centre decided to get his Aadhaar card made, it was discovered that he was already enroled with a Maur address.
“It was my thumb impression that revealed my identity at Gurdaspur ‘ashram’,” says Lovepreet, now at his home with his mother. A farm labourer, his mother Binder Kaur, had tried her best to find him, but had not given up hope yet. Finally, the family was reunited on May 22 this year.
“I went mad, looking for him, and I cannot explain my pain in his absence for nearly two years,” Binder says.
Lovepreet, however, says, “I never wanted to come back. I enjoyed myself in Shimla.” His aunt added that poverty was a reason for his longing to visit faraway places.
The family, however, is happy at the reunion. “The cops at the police station were not of much help,” said Binder hesitatingly, as she thanked the Almighty that she had made the Aadhaar cards of all his four kids, just a few months before Lovepreet ran away. Binder had lost her drunkard husband due to illness, eight years ago is now barely able to make ends meet.
“We make sure that any inmate that comes to Children Home gets his/her Aadhaar card. Lovepreet’s home was found from there,” said Ravneet Kaur, child protection officer, with the Bathinda Child Protection Office under the state’s woman and child development department.