In a rather uncommon ‘riches to rags’ kind of an incident, a 19-year-old runaway boy was reunited with his family by two policemen vacationing in the hill station of Shimla, Himachal Pradesh.
Gujarat’s millionaire oil trader Ghanshyam Thakkar’s 19 year old son, Dwarkesh Thakkar was an engineering student at a reputed college in Vasad. The Thakkar family that resides in Padra informed Vadodara Police about their missing son after he did not come back home and they could not contact him after Oct 14. Dwarkesh had left home saying he was going to college.
The cops tried to trace the boy using surveillance footage from Vadodara Railway Station and the auto-rickshaw driver who dropped him there on Monday, Oct 14. The probe almost hit a dead-end when they did not find him across Gujarat and Mumbai. However, after almost 15 days of the search operation, the Padra Police Station received a call from a hotel manager in Shimla who wanted to verify the identity of a young boy looking for a job. Dwarkesh had approached the manager for a job who was prompt enough to verify his identity with the cops.
After the manager sent Dwarkesh’s photo ID for verification, Padra cops verified it and contacted 2 cops, Sanjaysinh Gohil and Bhupendrasinh Mahida, on a family holiday in Himachal’s capital. Gohil and Mahida immediately went to the hotel looking for Dwarkesh but he had already left from there. The hotel manager informed the cops that Dwarkesh had been working by washing utensils at roadside eateries, kiosks, and sleeping on roadsides and survived on whatever food he got. The cops immediately contacted such eateries and local taxi drivers and shared his photos along with their numbers.
One Monday midnight, Gohil received a call from local cab driver who informed him that he had seen the youth sleeping on the roadside in Shimla town. Mahida and Gohil rushed to the spot and identified themselves to Dwarkesh Thakkar. Dwarkesh told the police that he did not like his college or studies, and hence ran away from his home.
Dwarkesh’s family was informed and flew down to Shimla to take custody of their son. “It is a big relief for us as our son has been found. It was a very difficult time for the entire family,” said his uncle Ketan Thakkar.
