AHMEDABAD: More than three decades ago, when a 7-year-old boy stepped out of his home in Ahmedabad to play, he was kidnapped by a trucker who drove him hundreds of kilometres to Haryana. He was made to work as a bonded labourer on an animal farm with almost no contact with the outside world.On Sept 16, the victim reappeared as a frail man of 35 at the Ahmedabad railway station police outpost. Throughout his years as a bonded slave, he fought hard to remember a few things about his family—his house had three rooms, his father went to work on a cycle, and he had five sisters. Upon entering the city, the man went to the cops and recounted how his childhood was battered out of him in an animal pen, amid goats, sheep, and filth, and pleaded for help to find his family.The man introduced himself to the police as ‘Raju’, the name tattooed on his hand, the only identity he clung to all these years. “He narrated in Hindi his more than three-decade-long ordeal in about three minutes: being kidnapped, confined, and tortured in a pen,” said Kalupur police inspector H R Vaghela. “When it was no longer possible to push back against his captor, he began following his instructions.”
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Vaghela said, “What could a boy do in such a situation? He was given food two times a day and he had to take care of his captor’s animals.”As for his escape, Raju told the police he was pleading with various people for years to help him flee from enslavement. Finally, last year, a truck driver agreed to drop him in Jaipur but made good on that promise only recently. From Jaipur, Raju boarded a train to Ahmedabad, police said.Raju, however, is not even sure about that name, Vaghela said. “He has taken a cue from his tattoo. Raju was not sent to school,” Vaghela said. “He may have attended school in Ahmedabad for a while. In Haryana, he was used as a bonded labourer.”A senior police officer explained the extent of Raju’s lost years. “Raju’s childhood, adolescence, and youth were erased on various farms in Haryana.” The officer added, “He does not know anything about the places to which he was taken. It will be an uphill task to trace his family or even the area where he lived in his childhood.”Efforts are underway, nevertheless, to find Raju’s family. “We have disseminated information, including his picture and what he remembered about his father, siblings, and house,” Vaghela said. “We are trying to determine if any missing person complaint was registered at the time. But we are unsure about the year he was taken.”A cop privy to the developments said Raju believes it was around the 50th Independence year of India when he was abducted.
