JUMLA, Sept 29: Four children aged between three to 17 years have arrived in Khalanga, Jumla, all the way from the Indian State of Punjab in search of their father. The eldest one of them, Madhu BK, stated that their father was a daily wage earner in Punjab and he went missing three years ago.
“We were told that our home in Nepal is in Kailali district, but couldn’t figure out which area, which place,” Madhu said. “We are desperate to find him so we came here.”
Madhu’s younger sister Geeta is 16. The two other siblings are nine and three years old. The children said that they all were born and brought up in Punjab.
Children who came to Jumla from Punjab in search of their fathe...
“Our mother died when he was just one month old,” Madhu said, pointing at his youngest brother who was sitting on her lap. “Then our father married another woman.”
After the second marriage of their father, life became very hard for them. According to Madhu, they hardly felt at home. However, there was shelter and life felt safer.
“But he simply left us and disappeared. We have not seen him for three years,” she lamented.
Madhu is the sole caretaker of the family. She feeds her siblings by doing ‘whatever small jobs available’. But she was no longer able to handle it after the coronavirus pandemic. “Nepalis working in Punjab started returning home. Finding a job became impossible, we had no means to survive,” she said.
As per the information Madhu has collected, her father has already sold off their ancestral land in Kailali. The children reached Jumla a week ago via Nepalgunj and Surkhet. For two, three days they worked as laborers at a school building in Mahat village of Jumla. The building of Janata Secondary School was under construction. But then they headed for Bijayanagar to find their father.
“We found work and they paid us for the labor. But we had to move on because our main job is to find our father,” Madhu said.
Seeing the children helpless, a local in Bijaynagar, Lamhu Tamang, informed the police and they were rescued. According to DSP Madhav Kafle, the case is being studied. “Right now they have been sheltered at the women and children service center. They are safe, their medical tests were also done,” he said. He added that the children have not been able to disclose the accurate address of their village.
