And Naseema began a new life, leaving the country with Sayad when she was 20.

But memories of her father continued to haunt her — of how he had doted on her, carrying her on his shoulders to school on rainy days so she didn’t dirty her feet. Finally, Sayad, a business consultant, wrote an email to the Police Commissioner in Chennai; then he called Varadaraj.

Ten days later, the detective called back. “Finding my father means so much to me. Now, I too have a family, just like my husband,” says Naseema, breaking down.

“I never thought it would be possible to find my father so soon. I had never stopped thinking of him. Even when I went into labour to deliver my two children, my only thought was my father should have been at my side,” she says.

According to Varadaraj, two staffers of his agency first traced Zaipuneesa in Chennai, the relative who had taken Naseema away. And through her, they found Ibrahim Sheriff. Naseema says she lashed out at Zaipuneesa in whose house she first talked to her father last month. “But there is so much happiness in my life now, I can forgive her,” she says.

For Sayad, her husband, it was the “most exciting moment” of his life. “It always pained her that she could not find her father and her sisters. There is not a day when she did not pray to Allah to help her find them,” he says.

Ibrahim Sheriff, meanwhile, “is smiling all the time” these days, says his brother Adam with whom he had been staying all these years. “I am waiting to fly to my daughter and see my grand-daughters,” conveys Ibrahim in sign language. Naseema says she will now take care of her family. Ibrahim was so poor that his second daughter has remained unmarried, counting out the days in an orphanage where she had grown up — his eldest daughter was married when she was quite young.

... contd.