'Missing' Bihar man reunites with family after six years

Vijay raj with relatives
Vijay with his brothers, Fr Joshua, Manish Kumar and sub inspector K G Ratheesh. | Photo: Manorama

Edathua: The brothers of Vijay Raj couldn't hold back their tears when they saw their long-lost sibling after six years, for they had given up all hope of finding him.

The four brothers took turns to hug the middle-aged Bihar-native who had landed in Kerala six years ago.

The Sneha Bhavan orphanage near Edathua in Alappuzha district witnessed emotional scenes when Vijay’s siblings and close relatives came to meet him recently, travelling all the way from a remote village in Bihar.

The reunion was facilitated by a senior Kerala government official and a social worker based in northern India.

Vijay was noticed by Fr George Joshua, a member of the Board of Control for Orphanages and Manish Kumar, a social worker from north India six-days ago.

Vijay who speaks Hindi, has been an inmate of the Sneha Bhavan for the past six years, grabbed the attention of the team when they were visiting the orphanage.

That is when the 55-year-old revealed that he had, after a minor skirmish at home in 2012, boarded a south-bound train from Patna. Caught in a strange land, he got down at the Thiruvalla railway station. From there, he happened to take an aimless westward journey for days that eventually ended at Anaprambal.

There, at the temple junction, Vijay collapsed. Upon noticing a fatigued man, locals took him to the orphanage. Sneha Bhavan thus then became Vijay’s home.

After sustained efforts, Fr Joshua and Manish located Vijay's parents with the help of the Bihar police. Vijay’s younger brothers Ashok Raj, Shivshankar Raj, Jalandhar Raj and Rajukumar Raj, besides six other relatives, arrived at the orphanage on Saturday and took him home.

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