Mentally challenged woman to meet her family after 13 years

Kolkata, Dec 26 (SocialNews.XYZ) It has been 13 years since a 65-year-old woman was separated from her family who also had no idea about the whereabouts of the woman. However, amateur Ham Radio Operators in the state not only traced her but made all the arrangements so that she could come back to her family.

A mentally challenged tribal woman who was in a hospital in Varanasi for nearly 13 years is being reunited with her family at Kotwali in West Midnapore district of Bengal. The formalities at the administrative and police level have been completed and her family members will be leaving the city in one or two days to take her back.

The identity of the woman came to the fore when Anima Chakraborty of Ham Radio went to Varanasi for religious purposes last month. During her visit to Pandeypur Mental Hospital for distributing fruits and sweets among the patients she came across a woman who was speaking Bengali fluently. This attracted her attention and she got in touch with her ham radio team who immediately got to work.

"After she got in touch with us, we asked the caretaker of the hospital to send a photograph of the woman so that we can establish a connection with her family through our network. After the photograph we could trace that she belonged to a family in Kotwali in East Midnapore. We could establish contact with her brother Joydeb Dolui at Sholkamari village at Kotwali in West Midnapore.," Ambarish Nag Biswas, the secretary of the West Bengal Radio Club - an organisation of ham radio enthusiasts in the state - said.

According to one of the ham radio operators the husband of the woman left her when she was four months pregnant following which she developed a mental problem. When her son was around 18 months old, she had gone missing and her family members' efforts to trace her went in vain. Her son Sukumar who is now 14 years old is being looked after by his uncle Joydeb and his aunt.

"There were further formalities to be completed before we could complete the process of returning the woman to her home. In most of the cases the families refuse to take back these kind of patients and finally they have to stay back in the mental asylum but in this case the family was cooperative and they want to take her back as soon as possible. The UP and West Bengal governments were also helpful and we will be able to bring back the woman soon. Sukumar along with some of the neighbours will soon travel to Varanasi and take his mother home," the operator said.

Source: IANS