THE Thane city police have reunited a woman with her long-lost family 24 years after she went missing as a child with the help of a tattoo on her forearm, officials said on Saturday. In an official press release, police said they traced the family of 30-year-old Bharti Ashru Kadam under a special operation named ‘Operation Shodh-5’. Police said Bharti got separated from her family in 2002 while visiting her maternal uncle in Navi Mumbai. She was subsequently found by the CBD Belapur police and placed in a shelter home, where she grew up, got married, and assumed the name Janhvi Vaibhav Jambhare.

 

Bharti then settled in Solapur with her two children, but the desire to find her biological family never faded, the release said. Her family, including her brothers Prakash and Vijay and sister Shalini, had spent years searching for her. Vijay had even travelled to Delhi and Haryana following unconfirmed leads, it said. On Friday, Bharti approached the Child Protection Unit of Thane police for assistance. It was not immediately clear why she approached the Thane police for assistance. Piecing together old police records, missing person entries, and 2002 voter lists, along with a crucial reference to a tattoo on her forearm bearing her birth name ‘Bharti Ashru Kadam’, the team located her siblings. Soon, she was on a video call with her brothers and sisters, the release said. “This emotional reunion after 24 years highlights that policing is not just about maintaining law and order, but also about healing broken bonds and bringing hope,” it added.