"I feel like the God has come to us in the form of my lost son," says Pabitra, Bijaya´s mother.
Pabitra and her husband Tirtha, residents of Dudharaksha-1 in Rupendehi, had lost hopes of Bijaya´s comeback. Despite wandering for years in search of their son, Pabitra and Tirtha could not find Bijaya.
To their pleasant surprise, Bijaya came back on April 29. Tirtha, who was in a gulf country for livelihood, has immediately returned home after receiving the news of his lost son returning home.
"An astrologer had assured me that my son would come back at the age of 13," Tirtha said. "It turned out to be true."
In the evening of May 19, 2003, Pabitra had visited her neighborhood after Bijaya felt asleep. She came back after a couple of hours only to not find her son anywhere.
She tried to switch on the light, but to no avail.
The bulb was taken off the holder attached to the switch. Dismayed with their son´s kidnapping, Parbati and Tirtha desperately searched for Bijaya. But their relentless efforts did not yield any results.
By sheer luck, Mani Dumre, an acquaintance of Tirtha and Pabitra, attended the wedding ceremony of a daughter of Abdul Mozib, former chairman of Patariya VDC in Rupendehi.
Mani who also had spent months in search of Tirtha´s lost son easily recognized Bijaya. Upon a little enquiry, he came to know that Mozib had found Bijaya just days back.
Bijaya, who was forced to work in a local eatery, had arrived near a mosque in Patariya after escaping from the eatery owner. Pouring out his love for the innocent kid, Mozib adopted him as his little son. "I had thought of giving good education to him," Mozib said, adding. "I must send him back to his parents."
Bijaya, now 13, cannot clearly remember where he was kept shortly after his kidnapping. In the later years, he was forced to do all works from cleaning dishes to serving customers in a hotel.
"The owner of the hotel would beat me up every time I made mistakes," he recollects. "Once, the hotel owner even stabbed me in my legs for breaking a glass," he says. "I was not taken to hospitals for treatment."
One night when every one was asleep, he fled the hotel with the help of a slightly older girl. "I used to call her didi (elder sister). She helped me descend to the street by a rope from the second floor of the hotel," he recounts. Once on the ground, he ran without any particular destination. After hours of an aimless run, he came to a mosque where he spent that entire night.
Meanwhile, Bijaya´s parents have requested police to arrest those who kidnapped their son and held hostage for years. DSP Dan Bahadur Karki at Area Police Office of Butawal promised to arrest the kidnappers soon.
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