25-year-old found begging in Kolkata
TURA: A young man from Garo Hills who went missing in 2012 while returning home from Chennai was found begging on the streets of Kolkata.
Sillian A. Sangma of Rongchigre village under Rongram block disappeared on December 12, 2012, while coming back from Chennai where he went in search of livelihood.
There were two others from Assam travelling with Sillian.
What led to his disappearance remains a mystery. But Sillian, now 25, claimed that he was drugged and his belongings, including identity papers, were stolen when he arrived in Kolkata. Unfamiliar with the place and language, he suffered a mental breakdown and started living on the city streets.
Back home in Garo Hills, the distraught family alerted police when he failed to reach home by the end of December 2012. Attempts to find him ended in despair.
For the next four years, Sillian, who was then 21, made the streets of Kolkata his home surviving on generous handouts from passing commuters. He befriended an auto rickshaw driver who asked him about his home and last December told this friend about a phone number he recalled being used by one of his relatives back home.
The call made from the auto driver’s phone connected the missing dots as his family was able to know about his whereabouts for the first time.
Help was extended to bring him back home by several people from different walks of life.
A cousin and social activist, Soshan A Sangma, volunteered to head to Kolkata to find him while another youth from Tura, Supratim Sinha, studying in an institution in Salt Lake, Kolkata, spotted Sillian at Sector 5 and posted his picture on social media leading to confirmation of his identity.
With the help of a social activist from Kolkata, Cornelius Gomes, and members of the Garo community in Kolkata, including his clan, Sillian was finally reunited with his family on Thursday in the city of joy. He is now on his way back to Garo Hills accompanied by his relatives as his elderly mother awaits the return of a son back in the village.