Parents trace missing son on television show

A television programme has helped reunite a 13-year-old boy, who has mental disabilities, with his parents after two-and-a-half years of him going missing.

Family members of the boy were watching the news bulletin on "Doordarshan Kolkata", when they spotted their ward among the inmates of a home that houses persons with mentally disabilities, in Nadia district of West Bengal, a state government release said.

The child's father Kartik Shaw immediately contacted the police, which got in touch with the Doordarshan news unit, it said.

The home at Nakashipra area of the district is run by Moslem Munshi, an employee of the State Sericulture Department, the release said.

A Kolkata based driver finds his lost son with the help of #Doordarshan News#DDNews, #GoodNewsIndiapic.twitter.com/el4W04xQx8 — Doordarshan News (@DDNewsLive) September 18, 2019

Mr Munshi said the boy was sent to "Nirmal Hriday" by the District Child Welfare Committee around one-and-a-half-years ago.

The child had gone missing from a field near his Ahiritola residence in north Kolkata on February 10, 2017, following which his father lodged a police complaint, the release said.

The Nadia district administration rescued the boy last year from Karimpur, and initially kept him at a government home there.

"The parents of the boy contacted me, came to Nakashipara and met him on Sunday. They could not hold back their tears seeing the boy after such a long time," Mr Munshi said.

The child will be handed over to his parents after completion of formalities at the office of the Child Welfare Committee on Thursday, he told PTI.