Ransom Call, Silence, and a Miracle: Ghaziabad Boy Reunited with Family After 30 Years in Slavery
Srinagar, Nov 28: In a twist of fate, a kidnapping case from 1993 that shook Ghaziabad found its extraordinary resolution last week, when a businessman’s decision to rescue a bonded labourer in Jaisalmer led to the miraculous return of a long-lost boy.
Bhim Singh, abducted at the age of nine in 1993 from Noida, was found in a remote village in Jaisalmer, tied to a tree at an animal farm.
The frail man, who had spent three decades as a bonded laborer, was the same child who had vanished from his family’s life.
Bhim’s family had received a ransom call shortly after his abduction, but subsequent police efforts yielded no clues, and the young boy seemed to vanish without a trace, reported Times of India.
Over the years, the family carried on with their lives, still haunted by the question of what happened to Bhim, though they had little hope of ever seeing him again.
After retiring from his job at the electricity department, Bhim’s father, Tularam, decided not to return to their village in Dadri, fearing that Bhim might one day search for them. Instead, Tularam opened a flour mill in Ghaziabad, staying close to the family’s home in Shaheed Nagar.
Despite the passage of time, the family never gave up on the faint hope that Bhim might one day come back.
Then, last Tuesday, that hope became a reality when Bhim, now a grown man, appeared at the Khoda police station in Ghaziabad, holding a letter written by the businessman who had rescued him.
The letter contained details that led police to investigate old records, eventually confirming that Bhim was the same boy who had been abducted 30 years ago.
The family, in shock and disbelief, struggled to recognize the man in front of them, whose appearance had been altered by years of hardship.
Yet, identifying marks—a mole on his leg and the nickname ‘Raju’ tattooed on his arm—helped them confirm his identity. The family was reunited with the boy they had long considered lost.
Bhim, who had little memory of Ghaziabad, recounted the horrors of his captivity.
After being kidnapped by an auto gang, he was sold to a herder in Rajasthan, where he spent the next three decades rearing sheep and goats, living in a shed next to the animals.
He was chained at night and given minimal food—mostly bread and tea—while enduring severe isolation and abuse.
The police discovered that, after the kidnapping, Bhim had been taken to Rajasthan, where he was sold to a man who would keep him in slavery for the next 30 years.
Despite his torment, the miracle of his survival and reunion with his family finally closed a painful chapter for them all.