1 August 2011 *Yogesh Sadhwani* * * *MUMBAI *- An 11-year-old boy who had been rescued from the Kavdas orphanage last year and was reunited with his family a couple of months later, is missing from his Airoli home again.
The distraught parents of Sandeep Pyarelal Gupta, alias Sunny, lodged a missing complaint at the Rabale Police Station, but there's no news of the boy, who is mentally challenged and hearing and speech impaired. Pyarelal Gupta, a bhelpuri vendor at Airoli, said one day when he returned home from work he found that Sunny wasn’t at home. “My wife is paralysed and can barely do household chores. She is in no condition to keep an eye on Sunny all the time. He was playing outside and then suddenly vanished. We kept looking for him for days,” said Gupta. It’s been months, but the family has no clues on the whereabouts of their son. “It was a huge mistake on our part. He was looking so healthy and fine at the shelter in Ulhasnagar. We should have realised that we wouldn’t be able to take care of him as well and let him stay there. Look what we have done now. Our son is lost again and we are completely helpless,” said a sobbing Gupta. His wife Geeta added, “I feel so miserable about having lost my son again. This time if the authorities find him we will not try to get him back here. We are just not capable of looking after him.” *Santosh Shinde* Sunny, when he was rescued from Kavdas, and (right) before he went missing. He is hearing and speech impaired Sunny first went missing in 2009. Weeks later he was found by police who handed him over to the state-run children’s home at Ulhasnagar. Since he was found to be mentally disabled he was transferred to Kavdas orphanage in December 2009. He was rescued in August last year, after Mumbai Mirror reported on the atrocities meted out to the children there. He was extremely underweight and had to be hospitalised for over a week. Suffering from severe malnutrition and skin infection, Sunny survived and in days, even became healthier. He was later brought back to the state-run home at Ulhasnagar. His parents saw his photograph in the paper and rushed to the Ulhasnagar home. “We just rushed to Ulhasnagar and were so excited just to see him alive. After he went missing we went looking for him everywhere but eventually gave up,” said Gupta. http://www.mumbaimirror.com/index.aspx?page=article§id=2&contentid=20110801201108010216538661c3a790 -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Mental Health Advocacy (News 'N Views) India" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/MhaNewsViewsIndia?hl=en ------------- Affiliated Groups : MENTAL HEALTH ADVOCACY INDIA [email protected] Discussions on mental health law / policy / plan monitoring / human rights etc [email protected] India-specific news and views related to mental health [email protected] Information and support to carers of people with mental health issues [email protected] Mutual support and sharing of experiential knowledge, skills and social learning amongst peers
