Tathya Batayn helps Banu find her missing parents after 13yrs
She went missing at the age of eight on July 2008. She has been detached from her family living in Rangamati for 13 long years.
However, she now can finally be reunited with her family, thanks to the national database and relentless efforts of some government officials.
The reunion of Banu and her parents after a long 13-year gap made them very emotional, Chunarughat upazila nirbahi officer (UNO) Satyajit Ray told BSS.
Banu’s family is from Mathbaria area in Pirojpur. They migrated to Rangamati in search of a better fortune, the officer said.
But Banu went missing in 2008. Soon after that a kind-hearted person from Chattogram’s Raozan found Banu. Later he handed her over to Mahbubul Hasan, the then assistant general manager of Eastern Refinery in Chattogram on 12 August 2006.
Since then, Mahbubul has been looking after her. He introduced Banu as her own daughter, the UNO added.
Mahbubul Hasan went on retirement from the job in 2019. Later, he took initiatives to marry off Banu. It was at this point that he found the girl’s actual parents while preparing the birth registration certificate and national identity (NID) card required to complete the marriage registration procedure.
Later, Hasan's elder brother Md Mozaffar Hossain, a professor of the forestry department at Chittagong University, advised him to consult the issue with the UNO concerned.
While talking about how she went missing, UNO Ray said, “After getting lost, Hasna Banu could not remember anything except the names of her father and mother. It was almost impossible to find her parents among the billions of people in Bangladesh with just two names," Ray said.
Satyajit Ray said he asked Teknaf upazila election officer Bedarul Islam, who is also from his university, to make an effective effort to find Banu's parent from the national database.
Bedarul searched the names of Banu's parents through the national database and tried to find her family out of hundreds with the same names. He followed the 'trial and error method' to identify Hasna Banu's parents.
“There were some 800-900 people bearing the same names as Banu’s parents. Of them some 30-40 were found to be married to each other. Later, by scrutinising those names they identified the girl’s actual parent,” UNO Ray said.
At first, the UNO found two sisters whose parent’s names matched the names given by Banu. Based on this, he collected more information about them with the help of Langadu's UNO Moinul Abedin Masud and found that their sister went missing some 13 years back from Raozan.
Being confirmed about Hasna Banu's family, now residing at Langadu, Mahbubul Hasan visited the UNO office the next day and contacted Hasna Banu's father Mojibur Rahman and mother Farida Begum through a video call.
Mahbubul Hasan, professor Md Mozaffar Hossain, UNO Moinul Abedin Masud and Teknaf UEO Bedarul Islam were connected in the video call.
Hasna Banu's parents broke down in tears after finding their missing daughter back after 13 long years. Hasna Banu couldn’t hold her tears after seeing her family after so many years.
Chunarughat upazila executive officer Satyajit Das Chowdhury said, "I never thought I would be able to do this. This success has shown us new possibilities. If we work together, it will be possible to do anything.”