A teenager from Bihar who disappeared from near his home 14 months ago was reunited with his family on Sunday, 5 July, after amateur radio operators of the West Bengal Radio Club (WBRC) traced him to a street in Kakinara, North 24 Parganas district, West Bengal. The boy, identified as Khurshid Alam, has hearing and speech impairments and had been found unwell on the roadside before a local lawyer intervened.

How Khurshid Was Found

Lawyer Sonu Bagchi first came across the distressed teenager on a street in Kakinara a few days before the reunion. After he recovered sufficiently, Bagchi realised he could neither hear nor speak, making it impossible to identify him through conventional means. She approached local police, who helped place him in a shelter home for children with similar disabilities.

With standard identification efforts exhausted, Bagchi and the authorities reached out to the WBRC, an organisation of amateur radio operators known for reuniting missing persons with their families across India.

Amateur Radio Network Cracks the Case

Ambarish Nag Biswas, secretary of the WBRC, said the boy could offer no verbal clues and appeared to have suffered trauma. 'We tried to communicate with the boy, but realised that he could provide no clues. It was clear that he had suffered some trauma and was scared. We immediately circulated his photographs and videos across the country through our friends (also amateur radio operators). The result came back soon. A family in the Sugauli police station area of Motihari in Bihar's East Champaran district identified him as their missing son,' Nag Biswas said.

A video call to his mother confirmed the identification. Documents sent by the family formally established his identity as Khurshid Alam, whose father is a factory worker and whose elder brother, Arsheed, is an electrician.

The Journey No One Can Fully Explain

According to Nag Biswas, the boy had reportedly been addicted to gaming and had left home to visit a gaming parlour in Motihari, East Champaran. When he did not return that night, his family alerted police and a search was launched — without result. How or why he ended up nearly 800 km away in Kakinara remains unclear. 'We do not know whether it has anything to do with his addiction to gaming,' Nag Biswas noted. Khurshid's mother had reportedly been on the verge of a mental breakdown in the months following his disappearance.

Reunion and What Happens Next

News of Khurshid's tracing has triggered celebrations in his locality in Motihari. His brother Arsheed is now travelling to Kolkata and will proceed to Kakinara to complete the necessary formalities before bringing him home.

Notably, this reunion is part of a larger humanitarian mission the WBRC has quietly built over the years. 'We never took amateur radio as a mere hobby. From the start, we used it to help people. From the Super Cyclone in Odisha to the massive earthquake in Nepal, we have been engaged by governments to open alternate lines of communication,' Nag Biswas said. The club began its missing-persons work at the Gangasagar Mela and has since reunited several hundred people with their families — without charging a single rupee. It currently works with organisations including the Ramakrishna Mission to train students in amateur radio skills.