A mentally ill person, who reportedly lost his way and reached here from Coimbatore, was finally reunited with his family, courtesy the efforts of the Medical College Janamaithri police here.
Sheen Tharayil, Circle Inspector, Medical College, said Ranganathan, 32, had somehow reached the PG Students’ Hostel on the Medical College campus here last Friday. The police, who took him to the police station, found an identity card of a college in Bengaluru, where he supposedly did his doctorate studies. However, apart from his name, they could not find much about his whereabouts.
“He could barely speak even his name. We tried all that we could, but still could not give us an address. We then shifted him to the medical college hospital and kept trying to trace his family,” Mr. Tharayil said.
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The efforts of K. Vikraman, sub-inspector, Medical College, and his colleagues finally elicited a telephone number from Ranganathan. However, that proved to be a wrong number. But using the STD code that Ranganathan had given, of Coimbatore, the police kept dialling different combinations of the same number. And finally, on Monday, Ranganathan’s sister Poonkodi answered one such call.
Ms. Poonkodi and Ranganathan’s mother Kalyani reached the Medical College station on Tuesday.
They said Ranganathan, who was a lecturer, had been missing for three months from his home in Coimbatore.
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The family returned home late on Tuesday.