Two years on, Bidya still waits for her missing child

Safia, whose six-month-old son was stolen from Ajmer Dargah, might be lucky enough to get her baby back but for Bidya, a daily wager who lost her kid at the same shrine two years ago, the trauma refuses to end.

Ibrahim, the four-year-old son of Bidya, had gone missing when the family had come to the shrine in June 2010. The boy was lost in the crowd while playing and was handed over to the Dargah management by someone who found him.

The management, after receiving the child, made an announcement about the missing child and soon, a woman, who claimed to be the boy’s mother, approached them for the custody of the child.

Ibrahim’s family, however, claimed the shrine management handed over the child to a wrong person. Bidya’s brother Tazuddin claimed that the family members identified Ibrahim in the CCTV footages shown to them, and alleged that the Dargah committee “did not make efforts” to search the woman and the boy.

“When my sister found the boy missing, she rushed to the Dargah Committee and informed them. The committee said the boy had already been handed over to a woman who claimed to be his mother,” Tazuddin said.

Bidya, who also has a nine-year-old visually impaired elder son, alleges that some workers of the Dargah committee were involved in the kidnapping of her son. “It was negligence on part of the Dargah committee to hand over my son to a woman she said, a charge denied by Dargah officials.

When contacted, Hanuman Singh, SHO of Dargah police station said he had no update in the case.