Pakistan runaway boy set to be reunited with family after 5 years

Bhopal: A 15-year-old Pakistani boy, who had moved to Bangladesh along with his father and later sneaked into India alone, is all set to reunite with his mother this Eid, after a CA student from the city here traced the boy's family in the neighbouring country via social media.

"Mohammad Ramzan got separated from his mother Begum Razia a few years ago (around 2010-11) when his father Mohammad Kazol took him to Bangladesh and remarried," Hamza Basit, who came to the boy's rescue after learning about his ordeal from a newspaper report, said.

"All of it began when his step-mother started ill-treating him. Ramzan's father too did him no good. So, Ramzan one fine morning, about 30 months back, sneaked into India after someone advised him to do so, to pave way for his return to Pakistan," 20-year-old Basit who is pursuing a chartered accountancy course here, said.

The run-away boy landed in Ranchi and moved to Mumbai, and then reached New Delhi before he was caught by the police here and handed over to a shelter home (Umeed) in October 2013, he said.

"After I came to know about Ramzan, I met him and narrated his ordeal across the border with the help of social media," he said.

"What couldn't be done in two years, was done in just 11 days with the help of social networking site Facebook, microblogging site Twitter and Whatsapp," he claimed.

Activists at Karachi in Pakistan also helped Basit in his mission, by pasting Ramzan's photos on the walls of Moosa colony after his appeal went viral.

One day, the boy's step-father in Pakistan saw the poster and passed on the information to his wife (boy's mother) Begum Razia, Basit said.

Delighted, Razia contacted her son from Pakistan over phone in Bhopal on September 18 with the help of a person in whose house she worked, he added.

Ramzan said, "I couldn't believe my ears when my mother talked to me after five years. I also spoke to my sister Zora and my friends in Moosa Colony."

They wept and my eyes welled up with tears of joy, he said.

When I told her (mother) that I eat non vegetarian food, she said, "Beta achche se rehna, kahin jana nahi, mein tumhe Pakistan bulaugi or tumhara manpasad non-veg khilaungi." (Take care…Don't go anywhere…I will bring you to Pakistan and feed you your favourite non-veg food).

"I have contacted the External Affairs Ministry and one Ashutosh Shukla of Prime Minister Office to re-unite Ramzan with her mother in Pakistan. The Karachi City's Social Welfare Department has been of immense help to us," Archana Sahay, Director of Childline and 'Umeed' said.

Ramzan has been living at 'Umeed' here after the government railway police found him at the station on October 22, 2013.