Disability of 6 inmates coming in the way of tracing their families

Parveen Arora
Tribune News Service
Karnal, December 2

The disability of six deaf and dumb inmates, who are living in the lone state-run women’s shelter home Nari Niketan here, is posing a hurdle in getting them reunited with their family members.

They cannot go back to their families as they are unable to disclose their identities and addresses. Moreover, they are not literate enough to write the whereabouts of their families. One of them has been living here for seven years, another for five years.

Hitesh Garg, CJM, during a visit to the Nari Niketan on Saturday directed it to initiate fresh efforts to trace the families of these inmates. He asked them to get the help of translators to determine their whereabouts. “It is disturbing to learn that these inmates are not able to meet their families in this advanced age of technology. They are desperate to return home, but we are still clueless about their families,” said the CJM.

“I have directed the authorities to take their biometrics and take the help of the National Informatics Centre (NIC) for establishing their identity. I will share their information with my counterparts in other districts as well as the state headquarters,” he added.

Sandhya, in charge of Nari Niketan, informed the CJM that they had been making efforts to reunite the inmates with their families, but to no avail. Their teams went to the places from where they were found. Besides, they went to several gurdwaras in Haryana and Punjab as they learnt during counselling that one of the inmates was engaged in “langar sewa” at a gurdwara.