Ten months ago, 33-year-old Jamuna* left her home in Chhatarpur, Madhya Pradesh, after putting her one-year-old son to sleep. When she was missing the following morning, her family went out looking for her, but in vain.
A month ago she was found wearing old, torn and dirty clothes, and sitting near a signal on the East Coast Road in Chennai by a homeless rescue team of the Greater Chennai Corporation.
She was in extreme pain and unaware of her surroundings.
The team took her to a nearby hospital and found that she was eight months pregnant.
She was also diagnosed with mental illness. “She was unaware of her pregnancy. So, for her safety, we took her into the shelter,” said Rita Ayyappan, from Little Hearts NGO, which runs a night shelter for the homeless in ECR.
Word reaches husband
In the meantime, while Jamuna was undergoing treatment, the shelter coordinators, taking the help of the local police, began tracking her details. Slowly she began responding to the psychiatrist and remembered that she was from Chhatarpur, had five children, a husband and a sister.
The officers promptly passed on her information to the local police stations in Chhatarpur and circulated her details on WhatsApp and social media.
The information reached Jamuna’s husband Gopal,* who immediately reached out to the officers and came to Chennai to take her back home. “We were afraid she had died since nobody knew where she was,” he said.
‘Punish perpetrators’
When he arrived at the shelter, Jamuna took a while to recognise him, but when she did the two broke down and hugged. Gopal was taken aback when he found that she was pregnant.
“I don’t know what she went through on those streets and how this happened,” he wept. He was later seen requesting the officials to take strict action against the perpetrators. “I am only a farmer and we struggle to make ends meet. I don’t know how I am going to provide for the new baby, but I am happy to see Jamuna,” he said.
The two left for home on Tuesday evening. Before departing, Gopal thanked everyone who had helped in reuniting him with his wife.
(* names changed)
