Reunification of Mr. Bodubhoi with his family
30th May 2009

On 30th May, 2009 Mr. Prabir Das from Indian Red Cross Society Orissa State Branch along with Mr. Raghunathbhoi & Mr. Gouribhoi brother and son of Mr. Bodubhoi the person who was missing since a year, came to the Maharashtra State Branch Office.

About a year ago Mr. Bodubhoi was hired by a labour contractor to work in Gujarat. On his way there he descended for drinking water at Nandurbar Station which is in Maharashtra State and missed the train. As he was without his ticket he was caught by the Railway Police. Being from a tribal area of Orissa he could not speak Hindi, Marathi, English or even proper Oriya and was therefore misunderstood as an abnormal person and sent to Thane Regional Mental Hospital. Some abnormal symptoms like collecting garbage, beating people, disorientation due to trauma were seen and he was therefore treated for mental disorder.

Social workers tried to find out where he was from by attempting to communicate with him through sign language. Finally a student from TISS who was doing an internship at the hospital managed to get his home address as she spoke Oriya and wrote several letters to his family in 2008 but the letters went astray. It was only in April 2009 that one of the letters was delivered to the family. A volunteer of Orissa State Branch who was working in the tribal area informed the Orissa State Branch about this incident.

On 30th itself Mr. Jithin Tom Jose (Office Secretary) and Ms Kanchan Awate (Tracing Assistant) from IRCS Maharashtra State Branch along with the representatives from Orissa went to Thane Mental Hospital spoke to Mrs. Wathore, Hospital Social Worker and had the patient discharged.