Missing girl rejoins family after 21 years

In a real life tale that appears to be taken out straight from a Bollywood potboiler, a local girl, who went missing in 1995, has reunited with her parents after a gap of 21 years.

Jyotsna Dhawle was eight-year-old when she lost her way after stepping out of her home in Datta Nagar locality and reached railway station from where she boarded a train to Mumbai. After reaching Mumbai, she spent five days on a railway platform before getting into a train which took her to Hyderabad, the police stated in a release issued on Thursday.

Jyotsna was spotted by a woman hotelier in Hyderabad who took the girl to her home as domestic help. According to Jyotsna, the hotelier’s family used to harass her. Later, they relocated to Kerala after some years, however, Jyotsna fled their house and took a train to Bangalore where her life took a new turn.

She was spotted by the childline police at Bangalore railway station and after preliminary enquiry, she was admitted to a hostel there.

During her stay, Jyotsna started schooling and passed class 10 exams, the release stated. She was then married off to her hostel-mate M. Shivshakti and the couple started their life in a rented room in Bangalore where Jyotsna gave birth to a girl in 2004 and a boy in 2008.

However, during all these years the urge for tracing her parents grew stronger in Jyotsna.

In 2008, she started working for a software company, in Bangalore.

It was the call that she made to police helpline in Chandrapur on March 16 this year that brought a churn in the lives of Jyotsna and her parents.