Mohammed Ataullah, a cart-puller in Bawana, Outer Delhi, worked harder on Monday, like he did on Eid last year. The extra hours were to drive out memories going for the Eid prayers to the nearby dargah with his only son, Tauhid Alam.

Tauhid, then 7, disappeared on the evening of April 16, 2007. He had finished school, hurriedly gobbled up his rotis and gone out to play. He was never heard of again.

“Last year, I waited for him at the dargah, thinking he might come looking for me,” Ataullah said. “My wife and I went to all the children’s homes in Delhi to look for him. But I can’t lose hope — he is my only son.”

Tauhid remains a tiny “untraceable” statistic among the 9,000 children reported missing from the Capital since 2006, according to statistic compiled by the Delhi Commission of Protection of Child Rights, a statutory authority.

‘Cops said go have another son’
Two years on, the police are yet to file the mandatory First Information Report (FIR), Ataullah said. “When I went to the police station, they told me to go and have another child. That broke my heart.”

Last Wednesday, Delhi High Court Chief Justice A P Shah spoke for him: “What is this comment? One child is missing, and they are asked to produce one more. This is totally anti-poor. If the parents are wealthy, the police will go to any length to rescue the child but a poor person is asked to wait and watch.”

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