Deepak, a young man from Jharkhand’s Dumka district, was divorced from his family when he was five years old and spent the next 13 years in a children’s home 1,700 kilometers away from his village.
Deepak Dehri, now 18, recently discovered that destiny can also be kind when photographs of Massanjore Dam and its scenic surroundings during a video call led him to his long-lost home and reunited with his family.
Mr. Dehri, a member of the state’s Paharia primitive tribe, lost his father when he was five years old, and his mother later deserted him, according to Officer-in-Charge of Massanjore police station Chandrashekhar Choubey.
An aunt took him to Hardoi in Uttar Pradesh, but the boy quickly fled, anxious to return to his village. However, in his haste to return, Mr. Choubey boarded the wrong train, which took him to Rajasthan’s Bikaner.
Mr. Dehri spent the next 13 years of his life at a “Baal Grih” (children’s home) run by the Social Welfare Department in Bikaner, where he would often get sentimental, reminiscing about his childhood and giving detailed impressions of his village.
The superintendent of the remand home, Aravind Acharya, called the Massanjore police, who then made video calls to Mr. Dehri and showed him locations close to those he had narrated about, according to Mr. Choubey.
It didn’t take Dehri long to recognize the area near Massanjore Dam where he lived. According to the officer, he also said that his father was a fisherman and that he recognized local places where his relatives lived.
During subsequent video calls, his maternal uncle named the young man as well.
Mr. Dehri was eventually handed over to his family members in Dumka by two Bikaner constables on Friday evening, in the presence of Mr. Choubey and other police officers.
“My happiness knows no limits. I am willing to go to any length to make a living from my own people.”
Several members of his family made special sacrifices to the Gods and celebrated his return, bearing witness to a fact that is often fictionalized in film and literature.
