'It's our duty to help the lost find their way home'

At seminar, top cops and activists urge citizens to come forward and help unite missing persons with their families

(From left) Activist Samir Zaveri and Maharashtra special IG of police (law and order) Prabhat Kumar and retired ACP Vasant Dhoble at the seminar on Wednesday evening. Pic/Shadab Khan

Blame it on Bollywood. Or, starry-eyed kids lured by dreams like, “I will see Salman, rub shoulders with Shah­rukh or become a Ranvir”. “But, it is a way to bring kids to Mumbai,” said Prabhat Kumar, special IG of police (law and order), Maharashtra, at a seminar titled “Missing Persons: What can you do when o­ne goes missing?” held on a rain-hit Wednesday evening in Prabhadevi.

The event, organised by Moneylife Foundation, was aimed at encouraging people to help re-unite the lost with their families.

Among the troika of speakers was activist Samir Zaveri, who has dedicated his life to helping railway accident victims, after losing his legs to a railway tragedy. Zaveri spoke about how he impressed upon the Railways the importance of updating details about accident victims on the Shodh website — a search engine for victims who died in mishaps, and are missing — so that desperate families have some recourse to information.

Zaveri was followed by retired ACP Vasant Dhoble, who once struck fear into the pub and bar circuit with his hockey-wielding smash acts. Dhoble started an initiative called Missing Persons. He spoke about children being kidnapped from elsewhere, then bought, sold and auctioned in Mumbai for begging. “Begging is an urban phenomenon,” he said.

Dhoble exhorted ordinary people to get involved, “in helping find missing persons because there is such deep joy in that”. He used an example to bolster that advice, recalling an incident. “A Dharavi schoolgirl went ‘missing’ a few years ago. The missing girl’s classmate was visiting her maternal uncle during the Diwali holidays and to her shock, she spotted the girl begging at a crossroad in Mulund. She went up to the girl to ask what she was doing, but the beggar girl merely pointed to a lady at the signal and said, do not approach me or she will turn you into a beggar too.” Dhoble also went on to say that the classmate told her father about spotting her classmate. They then approached the police, and the girl was rescued and reunited with her family. “If a child can take the initiative, why can’t we, as adults, do so?” he asked.

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