MANSEHRA: A young man, who had gone missing in the 2005 earthquake as a child, on Sunday returned to Balakot in search of his family.

He contacted the police to help trace his family, which he claimed to have lost after the school in which he studied crumbled in the devastating earthquake.

“I was in my classroom when tremors jolted Balakot and the building of my school collapsed. I was among those students and teachers, who survived the tragedy though we sustained injuries,” Ijaz Ahmad, who is in his early 20s, told the Balakot police.

He said he was shifted to Rawalpindi for treatment, but some unknown people ‘abducted’ and sold him to people associated with brick kilns in Punjab.

“I was sold four times in different cities and worked as a bonded labourer at brick kilns,” Mr Ahmad said.

He told the police that he was in the third grade when the tragedy occurred. He said people used to call his father Mohammad Anwar and his mother Naseem Akhtar.

A large number of people rushed to the Balakot police station after knowing that a young man, who had gone missing some 18 years ago as a schoolchild, was in search of his family. Luckily, Mohammad Anwar was also among them.

He hugged his son, and almost cried in joy with tears rolling down his cheeks. He said the family used to call Ahmad as Zaid. He said the third grader had gone missing in the earthquake.

SHO Balakot police station Tariq Khan, however, said his department would get the DNA tests of Ahmad and Anwar conducted to ensure if they were really father and son.

Published in Dawn, June 5th, 2023