Udupi, KARNATAKA / Ahmedabad, GUJARAT :
WhatsApp group helps 60-year-old woman unite with her family after 3 years
When Nasrin Banu Mulla aka Rukiya, a 60-year-old woman left her home Navabs Chawl, Danilimda (Ganesh Nagar) in Ahmedabad to meet her daughter Muneera in Surat, little did she know that this journey would take her almost three-and-a-half years to reach Muneera’s house that was just 270 km away.
Nasrin accidentally landed in Mumbai and from there reached Udupi to start living at the Kalmadi bus stand near Malpe. Speaking to Bangalore Mirror, Rasheed Vittal who played an important role in uniting Nasrin with her family, said, “The lady was lucky because she was taken to Vishwasada Mane, a home for destitutes run by Sunil and his wife Elizabeth in Shankarapura of Udupi. She was then mentally disturbed for which she is being treated,” he said.
As her health improved, she began thinking of her children and grandchildren. On seeing children around, she would tell everyone that her grandchildren resembled them. However, she was helpless because she was illiterate and could not recollect her residential address in Ahmedabad. She did not have an address nor a telephone number for people to even help her. Totally unaware about what to do, she spent almost three years and three months in the ashram. She had a feeling that she would never meet her near and dear ones. The ashram staff too made all attempts to find her address, but failed.
She was fortunate to meet Siraj, a resident of Krishnapur working in Saudi Arabia, on December 10. Siraj Krishnapura was on a holiday and had taken his mother to a private hospital in Mukka for treatment. During the same time, the inmates of the destitute home had been to the hospital for a checkup. Nasrin who had covered her head with a shawl caught Siraj’s attention. He approached her and she told him in a Hindi mixed with Bengali about how she was travelling to her daughter Muneera’s house in Surat but accidentally landed in Udupi. She requested Siraj to provide her with a copy of the Quran. He provided her with a mat so that she could perform Namaz and shared this experience on a WhatsApp group, MFriends, with a message that he would be returning back to the Gulf as his holidays were ending and it would be great if someone from the group helped in uniting this lady with her family.
Rasheed, who is also the founder of MFriends, said, “On December 15, we decided to take up the cause of Rukiya. I immediately contacted the orphanage head and collected more details of the woman. Along with her photo and contact numbers of the president of MFriends Haneef Haji Golthamajalu, we shared the post on social media. We then contacted Shantaram Rao, a Mangalurean social worker settled in Ahmedabad for help. Shantaram took the initiative further and saw that the post got maximum reach including mosques as well as Muslim organisations. Several newspapers in Ahmedabad reported the same. We then created a WhatsApp group called Operation Rukiya. The message spread in several Muslim dominated areas of Ahmedabad.”
Within two days, Dilavar called Rasheed Vittal claiming that Nasrin was his mother. He told them that his family had made every attempt to search for her but to no avail. After uniting the family, Rasheed said, “It was a heart touching moment to see a mother unite with her family. They all had tears in their eyes.” Nasrin is widowed and four of her five daughters are married.
source: http://www.bangaloremirror.com / Bangalore Mirror / Home> News> State / by Deepthi Sanjiv, Bangalore Mirror Bureau / December 21st, 2016