Sonu was kept as a servant by his abductors.
By Sreekanth A. Nair
A 13-year-old Indian boy who was abducted seven years ago from Delhi and taken to Bangladesh, was reunited with his family on Thursday, thanks to the intervention of External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj.
Announcing the return of the boy Sonu, the Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Vikas Swarup tweeted the photos of the boy.
“An emotional homecoming. More pics of Sonu and his parents meeting EAM@SushmaSwaraj at Jawaharlal Nehru Bhawan,” said Swarup.
Swaraj welcomed the boy in Delhi on Thursday afternoon.
Sonu was kidnapped by two women from outside his house in East Delhi in 2009 and taken to Bangladesh. A Bangladeshi mechanic, Jamal Musa, who found the boy working as a servant, went all out to identify the parents of the boy and return him to India.
Jamal Musa came to know that Sonu was kidnapped from India when he met the boy and talked to him. Though Musa informed the police about the boy, they didn’t take it seriously.
Musa rescued the boy and produced him before a court. The court sent him to a children’s shelter.
Understanding that the boy is from Delhi, Musa traveled to Delhi and managed to find out his family.
“I couldn’t believe my ears when I heard Musa say, ‘I have found your son’. He will forever be an angel for me,” Sonu’s father Mehboob was quoted as saying by The Times of India.
“They [the alleged abductors] used to torture the boy and keep him busy with hard work around the day at my neighbor’s house. I informed the police about it around three years ago,” Musa told Bangladeshi newspaper Daily Star.
Sonu’s family sought the help of External Affairs Ministry which finally led to his reunion. A court in Bangladesh’s Barguna district handed over the boy to the Indian High Commission in Dhaka. The officials didn’t insist on signing a security bond for handing him over.
On June 28, Swaraj tweeted that the DNA of the boy matched that of his mother.
“Sonu – who was kidnapped from Delhi, was found in a shelter home in Bangladesh. We matched the DNA with his mother. The test is positive,” tweeted the minister.
In a series of tweets, Swaraj had thanked all those who looked after the boy.
“Thank u @awasthis @JournoPranay @raydeep and friends in the media who brought this matter to my notice on 24th May,” she said.
“I thank all those who looked after our young citizen in Bangladesh,” she added.