Parents reunited with son after two years

New Delhi: Delhi Police, upon intervention from the Delhi Commission for Women (DCW), reunited a three-year-old son with his parents on Monday. The child was missing for two years following which parents finally decided to approach DCW Chairperson Swati Maliwal at the Mahila Suraksha Padyatra. Speaking to Maliwal at a public gathering in Shahbad Dairy, the mother of the child said that her husband had sold of their infant son, then 11-month-old, to a middleman because she was seriously ill and he was unable to care for him.

The father had arranged for a childless couple to look after their son and the middleman had set a meeting at Old Delhi Railway Station, where the child was last seen. When the father went back for his son two to three months later, he was unable to find the middleman or the family that was looking after the child.

The only information available to parents was that the family lived somewhere in Khajuri in the North-Eastern part of Delhi. The parents went to several police stations asking for help, but only saw inaction. Fearing that their son might have been trafficked or killed, the parents sought help from the DCW chief.

A press note from the women's commission in Delhi stated that Maliwal spoke to Shahbad Police Station SHO immediately upon hearing details of the incident, and a team was mobilised as a result of which the child was found in two days from a house in Khajuri. DCW officials said that the child was handed over to his parents following due procedures set out by the child welfare committee.

Maliwal said that "it was painful to see a mother crying for her lost child and feeling helpless because no authority was ready to support her in her search for her missing child". She added that Shahbad Police Station SHO and his team must be commended for tracing the missing child in just two days.