‘Lost’ for 12 yrs, UP woman makes miraculous return to sons & sanity

Bijnor: A woman her family had mourned as dead for over a decade has been reunited with her sons in an emotional homecoming that left an entire village in tears. Rajo Devi, now 68, vanished from Delhi in 2014, till good samaritans Subhash Chandra and Nafis Ahmad crossed her path.Suffering from acute depression after her husband’s death, she walked out of her rented place one day -- and disappeared without a trace. Despite police complaints and searches across multiple districts, her family found no leads.Years passed. Rituals marking her death were performed. A photograph was the only reminder of her.Then, a few months ago, Subhash Chandra, a local social worker, found a disoriented elderly woman wandering alone near a Haryana village. Unable to identify herself, she was placed in an ashram.

With treatment and counselling, her memory gradually returned -- fragments of remembrance of a village, a family and life left behind. Her village pradhan was traced, and a video call to her sons was made. Sons Kapil Kumar, Sonu Kumar and Rohit Kumar broke down on screen, seeing her. Days later, Rajo was handed back to her family.Recalling the video call, Shahzadpur village head Nafis Ahmad told TOI on Thursday: “That was about a week ago. The call came from an ashram in Haryana.

I believe they found my number on the internet. The caller asked me for information about a woman named Rajo Devi and also sent me her photograph. Since the family had earlier lived in Delhi and stayed in Bijnor’s Shahzadpur briefly before moving to Haridwar for work, I could not recognise her.”Ahmad then showed her photograph to some villagers. They told the pradhan that “Rajo had already passed away”. However, with Chandra and ashram staff insisting she was still alive, Ahmad contacted the woman’s brother-in-law and obtained her sons’ phone numbers.“I shared the information with them, following which they went to the ashram and brought their mother back home. Rajo Devi is now living with her three sons in Haridwar, where they are employed. They were happy to be reunited with their ‘lost’ mother,” Ahmad added.Meanwhile, Rajo’s niece, Anamika, who lives in Shahzadpur, said, “Over time, we thought that we had lost her... It feels unreal today to see her again.”After the reunion, Rajo told her family that for years, she could not remember anything. She boarded a bus, which took her to Yamunanagar, and from there, she somehow landed in the ashram, years later. There, the staff took care of her and gradually she started to recall her past.“This is a new life for me now,” the 68-year-old said.