Mumbai Woman's Mother, Missing For 20 Years, Seen On Social Media In Pakistan

Social media has once again proved itself a boon to humankind as it helped a Mumbai-based woman find her mother who was missing for 20 years in Pakistan.

Yasmin Sheikh, a resident of Mumbai, reveals that her mother had gone to Dubai to work as a cook but she never returned.

"I came to know about my mother after 20 years through a Pakistan-based social media account which had posted a video," Yasmin Sheikh told news agency ANI.

"She often used to go to Qatar for 2-4 years but this time she had gone with the help of an agent and never came back. We tried looking for her but all the efforts went in vain as we could not even file a complaint as we had no evidence," she added.

Ms Sheikh further said that her mother, Hamida Banu (her mother) went to Dubai to work as a cook there and never contacted her family again.

"When we used to go to meet the agent to know about my mother's whereabouts, she (agent) used to say that my mother did not want to meet or talk to us and assured us that she was doing well, however, she in her video, clearly said that the agent had told her not to disclose the truth to anybody," Ms Sheikh said.

"It was only after the video came and reached us that we came to know about her living in Pakistan, else we did not know if she was in Dubai, Saudi or somewhere else" she added.

Disclosing the video that they came across, Ms Banu's sister Shahida said that they came to recognise her after she rightly stated the name of her husband, siblings and the residence.

Ms Shahida also said that they tried everything to find her sister and contacted the agent who allegedly fled after some time, thus taking away any hope to meet the sister.

Ms Sheikh's sister and daughter feel it a miracle to meet her after so many years and have urged the government to help bring her back as soon as possible.
 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)