Elderly Woman With Mental Illness Rescued From Mumbai After Video Goes Viral

Uttarakhand Police, acting on a viral Facebook video, rescued a mentally unstable elderly woman Hema Devi, a resident of Bhikiyasain in Almora district, from Mumbai and brought her home on Monday. On January 9, a video of the elderly woman went viral. The man who shot the video appealed for help for the woman.

Taking immediate cognisance of the viral video, Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami directed Pradeep Kumar Rai, SSP Almora, to bring the elderly woman from Mumbai to Almora soon.

Acting on the instructions of the Chief Minister, SSP Almora took immediate action and directed PRO/ANTF in-charge Saurabh Kumar Bharti to get the information about the person making the video and to contact him and inform the family members of Hema Devi.

After reaching Mumbai, the Almora police team and local Mumbai Police checked CCTV footage at various places and continuously at different places in Borivali, Kandivali, Malad, Andheri West and Lokhandwala, bus stations, railway stations, under flyovers/bridges, and langars. Constant efforts were made to search for the woman with visits to night shelters, dharamshalas along with pasting her photo/pamphlets and showing them to the people.

Almora police team consisting of Constable Yogesh Kumar and Constable Sain Ansari worked day and night for three days with the help of Mumbai Police, social worker Dan Singh Rajput and his team along with the President of Human Rights Foundation Mumbai, Meenakshi Sawant to search for the woman.

As a result of tireless efforts, on the morning of January 14, the woman was found safe by the police teams. The woman had an old leg injury and her leg was swollen. After getting her treatment and health test down, the Almora police team along with the woman left Mumbai on the morning of January 15 and reached Almora safely on Monday, January 16.

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