KARACHI: Only two of the 13 runaway boys brought to the city from Punjab were reunited with their families, while some others who have not found their home and relatives missed the friends they had in Lahore before they were repatriated to Sindh by the Punjab Child Protection Bureau, it emerged on Thursday.

Sixteen-year-old Mohammad Shahban, the eldest among the group, said: “It is not my city. I find no one here but I have my friends back in Lahore.”

He said he had no clear idea about the location of the house where he had been born and lived through his early years. However, he said he lived with his parents near the Karachi cantonment railway station as he often heard the whistles and trains running on tracks.

He was just eight in 2006 when, as he put it, boarded a stationary coach along with two of his friends to play a game.

Five out of 13 families traced

“I did not know how my friends disappeared as I had fallen asleep. When I woke up I found myself in the moving train. It terrified me; I tried to jump from it but the door was closed and a big man promised me that he would take me back to my parents,” said Shahban.

After the assurance, he took another nap and, when the train stopped, someone shook him to end his sleep and he found himself in a different city.

“I did not know where I was. Later, I found that it was Lahore. I had to work at shops and markets to survive. And when I had no job I foraged in the garbage for food.”

Shahban came to Karachi in 2010 in search of his family. He visited every area where he believed his parents could be but found nothing. He returned to Lahore because he had no acquaintance in Karachi.

“I have no one here to whom I could relate to. But I have many friends in Lahore.”

Imran, too, mistakenly slept in the train at the Rohri junction and reached Lahore. The 15-year-old boy had been living in Lahore since 2007 and missed his friends there.

“What will I do in Rohri? I have no acquaintance there. I have many friends in Lahore.”

All the 13 boys who arrived here on Wednesday had been taken to a hotel where the social welfare department organised an impressive gathering to reunite some of the runaway children it was handed over by the Punjab authorities with their families. However, the parents of just two children turned up at the gathering.

Officials said the rest of the children would remain in a government building. “We have handed over two boys to their parents and have identified the families of three more children,” said Sindh minister for social welfare Ziaul Hasan Lanjar at the function, which was jointly organised by the social welfare department and the Citizens-Police Liaison Committee.

“It is heartening to see these children are being reunited with their parents. We have contacted the families of three more children and they will be arriving soon to meet their sons,” the minister added.

He said one of the 13 children could not speak and asked the officials to take special care of him.

Social Welfare Secretary Shariq Ahmed said the department had picked a number of projects for the betterment of the young and needy population and hoped that they would soon be there to serve the cause.

Besides, Mr Lanjar said, the long-awaited Sindh Child Protection Authority ‘was a matter of days’ to be established. “We have expedited the process to establish the authority along with a number of other projects.”

CPLC chief Ahmed Chinoy said his organisation played its part in bringing back the runaway children belonging to Sindh from Punjab and now it was looking for the children hailing from Punjab in Sindh to send them to their native province.

Later, the two children, 12-year-old Shaan, son of Manzoor Ahmed Bhatti, and 13-year-old Aamir, son of Mohammad Yasin, were handed over to their fathers.

Gifts and giveaways were also distributed among the children.

Published in Dawn, July 25th, 2014