Kajal had been praying since May 28
Representational image
CHENNAI: When five-year old Kajal finally saw her mother on Thursday after more than two months of separation, she had the biggest smile on her face and she made sure she didn’t let go her mother’s clutches even for a minute.
The first thing she told her mother was that she had prayed God everyday that her mother would return to find her.Kajal had been praying since May 28, the day she was “mistaken” for a lost child by the child helpline officials at the Egmore railway station, from where she was scheduled to board a train to Assam with her mother.
They had come to the city to visit a relative. When her mother was in the restroom, Kajal waited with the luggage outside. Railway police spotted her and then “rescued” her and contacted the child helpline services who then handed her over to the Child Welfare Committee (CWC).
While the helpline officials were busy rescuing the child without verifying, Kajal’s mother was frantically looking for her daughter at Egmore station. Talking to DC in halting Hindi, she said she gave an oral complaint to police who said they couldn’t help since she had no photographs or documents of the child.
The mother tried to explain that she had left a bag with the child containing all the child’s documents including her birth certificate, her own documents, clothes and other belongings. “I was confused about what was happening, the police told me to take the train back home and bring back a picture. They said they would let me know if they found my daughter,” the mother explained. Helpless and alone, the mother took the train back home at ten that night.
“I would weep every night for my daughter. My husband and I would take turns to go to the Child Welfare Committee in Assam, but there wasn’t much I could do,” the mother continued. “If we had the money we would have made more trips but we couldn’t afford it, “ said Kajal’s father, a daily wage earner.
When Child Welfare Committee in Chennai forwarded the details of the child to their counterpart in Assam, they then got in touch with the parents and gave them the good news. The elated parents were then told that the child would be sent to Assam with an escort. After endless waiting, the parents got in touch with the CWC in Chennai who told them they couldn’t find an escort and therefore the parents had to come themselves to take the child back.
The parents reached Chennai on Wednesday night. Shy but thrilled, Kajal said she was waiting to go back home especially to see her two elder brothers, whom she had missed dearly.
Kajal’s story: Questions still remain
Instead of taking steps to find out where Kajal’s mother was, the police and the child welfare authorities sent the child to a shelter. The police made no attempt to locate her mother. This despite the fact that the child had a bag with all documents in it. When asked why the police didn’t take more efforts to locate the mother, a police officer’s reply was “We can’t keep looking into every toilet to find out where the mother is.”
However, when DC spoke to five-year old Kajal and asked her why she had not told the people who “rescued” her that her mother was in the restroom, she said that she had indeed informed them. This raised a question as to whether there was a system to distinguish between children waiting for their parents, like Kajal, and children lost.
According to Kajal’s mother, her daughter went missing in the afternoon while she had been to the restroom. She sought police’s help to locate her daughter who said who said they could not do much without the child’s photo. However, the police had said they did not receive any complaint or else they would have taken steps to trace the mother.
The Childline authorities allege that on a call from Egmore railway police about the child, they reached at 8:55 p.m. and transferred the child to Child Welfare Committee. When asked why they did not check the child’s belongings immediately, they claimed to have done so the next day.
( Source : deccan chronicle )
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