Boy whom his mother forgot reunited with family after 20 days

Twenty days after he went missing with his mother Mangal, two-and-a-half-year-old Pintu was reunited with his family Wednesday. But even as he played with father Subhash at the government railway police (GRP) station at CST Thursday afternoon, Mangal could barely stifle her yawns.

On February 1, Mangal (30) allegedly sneaked out of her mother's home in Chembur's Shramjeevi Nagar with Pintu. They remained untraceable for the next five days, police said.

Her family was not alarmed as she had gone missing on several occasions in the past too. On three previous occasions, she returned home without Pintu and without recollection of where she had left him.

On each of those occasions, her family traced Pintu within a day with the help of local social workers. Subhash said Mangal does not remember where she goes once she leaves home.

"A few weeks after Pintu was born, Mangal began to experience lack of sleep and bouts of forgetfulness. Her behaviour also changed. It wasn't anything to worry about until she began to disappear. She would fight with her mother and leave house when no one was around," he said.

Mangal Kharat lives with Subhash (35), a cleaner with a private firm at Vashi Naka in Chembur, and sons, Sumit (7), Suresh (4) and Pintu. She was working at CST but left the job a few years ago, police said. Mangal was found at Kalyan railway station on February 6 by social workers familiar with her condition.

Police said she told the social workers she threw Pintu off a train because she could not tolerate him. "But she did not remember which train she travelled on and how she came to Kalyan. She only kept repeating she had been to CST. She used to work there and it is possible she took a train to CST on February 1," said Surendranath Deshmukh, senior inspector, CST GRP police station.

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