Bangladeshi 'Bajrangi Bhaijaan' seeks to reunite Indian man with family

Krishnanagar: In a reel-to-real story, a Bangladeshi man, on a two-day visa to India, ran from pillar to post in West Bengal’s Nadia district to trace the family of a mute Indian man he had rescued 14 years ago from a then unfenced portion along the international border.

However, unlike the Bollywood flick ‘Bajrangi Bhaijaan’, where protagonist Pawan Kumar Chaturvedi — portrayed by Salman Khan — slipped into Pakistan and returned a mute girl to her mother, the Bangladeshi man had entered India legally last week for his search but had to go back dejected after his visa expired, sources said.

Md Ariful Islam, a resident of Chhaigharia village in Chuadanga district of Bangladesh, was seen showing the photograph of a 28-year-old man to people on the streets, in the shops and tea stalls in Nadia’s Hanskhali and Gede areas.

On the day of his return, January 24, a few people told Islam that a 14-year-old boy had gone missing from a village in Gede 14 years ago but when he went there, the family did not recognise the man in the photo and concluded it was not their missing son, the sources said.

However, before returning, Islam had left behind his phone number and address with a few people in India, they said.

“I was working on my agricultural field one day, 14 years ago, when I saw a boy standing alone and crying on the Indian side of the border.

“I rushed to him as the border was not fenced then. I felt pity for him upon finding that he was mute. So, without thinking of anything else, I took him home. Later I came to know he is a Hindu. Nevertheless, he is like my other sons,” Islam had said before returning to Bangladesh.

Islam said that he could not come earlier as he failed to arrange the money needed to travel to India.

“Though he is an inseparable part of my family now and it would be very painful for us to let him go, I felt as he is a young man now, it is my duty to return him to his parents,” he said.