How 1 cop's persistence reunited Nepal boy with family 10 yrs after he left home

New Delhi: For ten years, Kailash spent sleepless nights on platforms of Delhi's railway stations and child welfare centres, hoping to meet his parents and see his village in Nepal — each day becoming harder.

And while the 17-year-old had fled from a child care centre in North Delhi this February, looking to change his life, what he did not realise was that the sheer determination of a Delhi cop was what would reunite him with his family.

Ten years ago, a 7-year-old Kailash found his way to the Capital here sitting on the chain that connects two coaches of a train, from Punjab. The boy had tied pieces of cloth to his hand and harnessed himself to the train so that he would not fall.

Despite the danger, Kailash felt there was no other option but to run from his employer, who had started abusing him and beating him up.

46-year-old Mahesh Bansod's life was intertwined with that of Kailash after he fled from the child care institute in February. Bansod, a head constable at the Civil Lines police station, was tasked with tracking him and was quick to trace him in Ghaziabad.

Quickly, Bansod developed a bond with Kailash on their way back to the child care institute in Delhi from Ghaziabad and the boy's story prompted the policeman to try his best and reunite him with his family. The cop found that Kailash had spent days wandering around the Old Delhi Railway Station before being sent to an institute.

After a month's work of tracing villages in Nepal, tracking down cops in the country and repeated efforts to connect with people who might know the boy or his family, Bansod found the village but with a catch.

"He (Kailash) told us his village was Darwan. We started searching for it but couldn't find it," Bansod told Millennium Post, adding that only after connecting with Nepal Police did he find out that the name of the village had been changed to Pahalmanpur. From hereon, police in Nepal found the boy's address through their records.

And with Inspector Gautam of Nepal Police providing local contacts in Kailash's village to Bansod, the Delhi cop, adamant to trace the family, started video calling locals, asking them to look for Kailash's family or reports of a missing child and finally his mother was traced.

Bansod said the day he told Kailash about having traced his family, the boy had not slept a wink — in complete disbelief that he was about to meet his family. "He was a smart boy. Kept asking questions," Bansod said.

But when the policeman found out that Kailash's mother did not even have the money to travel to India and meet her son, he decided to pay for her travel expenses and reunited her with her son. A Child Welfare Committee report from March 24 said that Kailash was pursuing schooling in India and had agreed to return for his 10th class exams in June.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (North) Anto Alphonse said the basic job of the police is prevention and detection of crime. In this case, the victim could be reunited with his family by the personal efforts of HC Mahesh, who not only facilitated the family of the victim, who was in Nepal, to visit Delhi but also bore travel expenses from his pavings.