JOIN USAfter being abandoned by their father at the New Delhi Railway station, three children were reunited with their mother after a tweet with their picture began trending on Twitter late on Tuesday.
Abhishek, a journalist with the Press Trust of India, had tweeted a photo of the children at around 11 pm on Tuesday when he went to see his relatives off at the railway station.
He also called 1098, the helpline for children in distress, to report the incident. “Can someone help these helpless kids at New Delhi Railway Station near platform 16 entrance,” he tweeted.
The tweet was noticed by Chandni Chowk MLA Alka Lamba, who informed Deputy Commissioner of Police (North) Madhur Verma. A team of local police and volunteers from the Aam Aadmi Party and NGO Uday Foundation rushed to the railway station in the early hours of Wednesday and the children were spotted at platform number one after an hour-long search at around 1:30 am.
The kids were identified as Rumana, 7, Raja, 5, and Sanya, 4, residents of central Delhi’s Nabi Karim. The children told the police about their house after which they were safely handed over to their mother Tabassum. The 37-year-old woman was sleeping when the police team approached her.
An initial probe has revealed that the children were abandoned at the railway station by their father. Police have already recorded the statement of the children’s mother.
Tabassum told the police that she recently separated from her husband, who lives at Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh. They have seven children—three live with her while four stay with her husband. She came to the capital with the children last month.
“Tabassum works as a daily wage labourer and says that her husband often comes home to meet the children. He takes them away and drops them back without informing her,” said a police officer.
On Tuesday, the children were missing when Tabassum returned home. She, however, thought that they were with her husband and went to sleep. Police are planning to call her husband for questioning.