Aadhaar centre in Nagpur helps 14 missing persons reunite with families

A simple application for Aadhaar card in Maharashtra changed the lives of 14 people, who were reported missing by their families in various parts of the country years ago.

The Aadhaar Seva Kendra (ASK) in Mankapur has been instrumental in reuniting differently abled persons, women among others with their families scattered across the country in the last one year.

The centre’s manager Honorary Captain Anil Marathe identified special cases during the registration process, wherein the applications would get rejected because of issues with biometrics. “It all started last year with the application of an 18-year-old mentally challenged man, whose school needed his Aadhaar card details. However, his application would get rejected each time due to issues with biometrics,” Marathe said.

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The boy was found at a railway station when he was eight years old and was looked after by an orphanage and later by one Samarth Damle, who got him admitted to a school, he said. When the boy’s application got rejected repeatedly, Damle approached the centre in Mankapur and it was found that his Aadhaar registration had already been done in 2011, before he was reported missing, he said. “Investigations revealed that the boy’s name was Mohammed Aamir and he had gone missing from his home in Jabalpur of Madhya Pradesh.

With the help of his Aadhaar details, we were able to trace his family and he was reunited with them,” Marathe said. Marathe has been taking special efforts with the help of the UIDAI technical centre in Bengaluru and the regional office in Mumbai and was successful in getting Aadhaar details of persons reported missing based on their biometric data.

The centre had recently helped a 21-year-old specially abled man, who was reported missing six years ago, reunite with his family based in Bihar.

The man, who was given the name Prem Ramesh Ingale, was found at Nagpur railway station when he was 15 years old in November, 2016 and was placed in an orphanage. Authorities from the orphanage visited the ASK in July for Aadhaar registration, but the man’s application kept getting rejected and after further probe, it was found that the applicant already had an Aadhaar, which was generated in 2016.

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“The man was then identified as Sochan Kumar, a resident of Khagariya district in Bihar. On August 12, with the help of the thumb print, his identity was disclosed. The family was contacted in Bihar and he was reunited with them after completing the legal procedures on August 19,” Marathe said.

After reading reports about missing persons in Nagpur being reunited with families, an ashram in Panvel contacted the UIDAI centre in Mumbai about its inmates and a camp was conducted there by Marathe. The camp was conducted at the ashram run by SEAL, an NGO, in Wangini village of Panvel in June.

The ashram rescues, rehabilitates and reunites homeless persons. The organisation had been seeking Aadhaar registration for its inmates and was facing the same problem of their enrollment IDs (EIDs) getting rejected, the official said.

Details of 25 missing people could be found and of these, seven have been reunited with their families, he said, adding that the process to trace the families of 18 others is underway.