United with family, Mumbai youth talks about journey as a truck driver

United with family after three years, runaway youth talks about journey as a truck driver, cleaner

It's like a Diwali post Diwali in Airoli as the son, who ran away from home three years ago, was reunited with his family on Tuesday. Aniket Bangar was barely 17 when he fled from home fearing retribution for failing in two subjects in his engineering course. But stronger today, both mentally and physically, the 20-year-old realises that all his father wanted for him was his happiness.

Aniket Bangar's display pic on WhatsApp which helped trace him

The journey
After securing distinction in SSC, Aniket decided to study mechanical engineering and took admission at the Bharatiya Vidyapeeth College of Engineering in Kharghar. Speaking to mid-day, Aniket shared, "Today I realise that my father never scolded or discouraged me. It was my decision to take up engineering after the SSC. All he ever did was to encourage me to pursue whatever I wanted to in life and be successful in it. During the first year of engineering, in the second semester, I got ATKT in two subjects. Even then, my father didn't scold me. He only asked me to work harder on the weak subjects. I managed to clear the KT papers. But, in the second year, in the third semester, two exams - math and computer science - didn't go as per my expectations. On December 6, 2014, I checked my results online to find that I had indeed failed in math and computer. I was scared that my father would definitely lose his temper this time, so I fled."

Gorakh, his father, is into transport business, which seems to have influenced some of Aniket's aspirations as a teenager. Aniket reached Nhava Sheva in Navi Mumbai in search of work. "At 17, all that I had in mind was that I couldn't return home. I needed to prove to my father, or maybe just to myself, that I could take a decision and honour it. I wanted to earn a living, buy a truck some day."

The teenager met a truck driver who offered him a job as a cleaner. "I travelled to Pune,Nagpurand various other places with this truck driver. After a year, I sought the help of a government agent to procure a licence and made my Aadhaar card, too. I earned between R20,000 to R25,000 per month, but I tried to save at least Rs 10,000 every month. In the last three years, I have saved up R2.5 lakh."

Sub-inspector Sanjay Kshirsagar of the Anti-Human Trafficking Cell that traced him to the Kalamboli branch of a transport company said that, initially, Aniket was reluctant to return home. But, it was a Tuesday full of joyful tears, when Aniket was reunited with his family. "We all cried for 15 minutes. I guess God wasn't ready to separate me from my parents," Aniket said.

After he was reunited with his parents on Tuesday

Family overwhelmed
Since Tuesday, numerous friends and relatives of the Bangar family have dropped by to meet Aniket. Gorakh joked, "We are unable to shut the doors of our house." On a more serious note, he said, "It's yet to sink in that Aniket is back among us. We had almost lost hope of finding him."

The manhunt
"We covered the entire state ofMaharashtra, before we chanced upon a UP youth, Prasad Ghad, who said he knew someone by the name of Aniket Patil, who spoke fluent Marathi. He showed us the WhatsApp photo of the Aniket he knew, which we immediately shared with Gorakh, who confirmed that it was his son. With Ghad's help, we traced Aniket to Jyoti Roadlines at Kalamboli," Kshirsagar said.

Today, Aniket says he's strong enough to accept his own failures. "But, I am ready to fight to live better. I will take admission in the engineering course again and complete my studies. I want to become an engineer now, and I will."