Thane: Aadhar initiative helps reunite mentally ill man with kin

Thane: A 21-year-old man suffering from an intellectual developmental disability (IDD), who went missing from Mumbra on February 14, 2022, was reunited with his family on Friday (February 17).

There was little hope that Mohammed Sharik will be reunited with his family, but the drive initiated by Kaburbawdi's UIDAI centre to generate Aadhar cards for the patients at Thane's Regional Mental Hospital (RMH) led to the sweet reunion with his family, the RMH medical superintendent said on Sunday. 

“My son had gone out to afternoon namaz but he never came back. We tried looking for him everywhere but to no avail. We also registered a missing person complaint with the Mumbra police,” Mohammed Sheikh Shamshuddin said, adding that the family was so elated to find him “it felt like Eid”.

The Aadhar card enrollment drive

Sharik was sent to a home for beggars in Navi Mumbai and later, after a judicial hearing, was admitted to Thane RMH for treatment under the name 'Unknown Asaf' in November 2022. Luckily for him, the admission coincided with the institute's decision to generate Aadhar cards for all its residents.

Dr Netaji Mulik, medical superintendent of Thane RMH, said, “We initiated the Aadhar enrollment drive at the hospital with the help of Dr Chandra Dev Yadav – centre manager at the Aadhaar Seva Kendra at Kapurbawdi – to rehabilitate our patients and also enable us to obtain disability certificates as well as avail several government benefits and concessions for them.”

According to Dr Mulik, the Aadhar card camp was set up at the hospital on December 14. “As of now, there are about 230 patients and Aadhar cards have been made for 55. “While scanning fingerprints to make cards for the rest we discovered that they already had Aadhar cards,” he said.

“Dr Yadav contacted their Aadhar registered telephone numbers and within a week we had a list of the patients' names, pin codes and phone numbers. Sharik was one of the patients on that list. Dr Yadav contacted the telephone number linked with his name on Friday and spoke to his father who was informed about his whereabouts and asked to visit the RMH,” Dr Mulik said. Sharik identified his father immediately upon seeing him, one year and three days after he went missing. He was allowed to leave after completing hospital formalities.

Shamshuddin said, “I am grateful to Dr Yadav, Dr Mulik and all other doctors as well as the staff of the RMH who helped in such a big way to reunite us.”