19 July,2026 02:23 PM IST | Mumbai | Vinod Kumar Menon
The organisation has been reuniting missing persons with their family. Pics/Special Arrangement
EVERYDAY, somewhere in India, a family receives a phone call they had almost given up hoping for - a missing mother, a lost son or a husband who vanished years ago has been found. In the last six months alone, Shraddha Rehabilitation Foundation has reunited 805 wandering persons living with mental illness with their families, turning heartbreak into homecomings and proving that recovery is possible.
For another family in Bihar, it was a son who had disappeared without a trace and for another in Odisha, it was a mother whose children had almost forgotten the sound of her voice.
Closer to home in Maharashtra, two daughters who spent weeks travelling from one railway police station to another, refusing to believe that their mother had simply vanished without a trace.
A happy common thread runs through these stories - they all end with the phone call with a phone call from a happy voice on the other end saying, "We have found your loved one."
It's no ordinary feat that the Shraddha Rehabilitation Foundation has been able to reunite 805 wandering persons with their family between January and June 2026. This means the foundation helped bring more than four people back home every single day - an extraordinary achievement that reflects its unwavering commitment to restoring lives and reconnecting families.
June alone witnessed 160 reunions, while June 11 became the organisation's most remarkable day, when 18 people returned home to their families in just 24 hours.
Among them were two mothers reunited not only with their loved ones but also with their four young children.Each reunion ended years or sometimes months of unanswered questions.
805
Individuals reunited with families in last six months
A 65-year-old mother found after four months
Among the hundreds reunited this year was Balabai (name changed), a 65-year-old homemaker from Yerur village, Chandrapur district in Maharashtra.
Before mental illness entered her life, Balabai was a multi-tasker and was always on the ball. Not only did she raise her three daughters, but she was also active enough to travel to New Zealand until a few years ago.
Then came years of psychiatric illness. Although she had received treatment, her medication became irregular, and episodes of confusion returned.
One morning in April 2026, Balabai left home intending to travel to her daughter's house in Bhusawal. She carried a valid railway ticket. But in a disturbed mental state, she boarded the wrong train. When the family realised she was missing, the search began almost immediately. Her husband, daughters and son-in-law visited railway police stations, registered missing complaints and even checked CCTV footage for ten days across Chandrapur, Nagpur and surrounding areas.
Finally, one ray of hope emerged when Balabai was found on CCTV footage boarding a train towards Betul. Soon, the family headed to Betul, but the trail ran cold. The family, however, left no stone unturned and circulated her photograph via newspapers, Facebook and WhatsApp groups, the NGO circuit. They co-ordinated the same with the police, visited hospitals and traced her last mobile phone signal to Bhandewadi in Nagpur.
On May 22, social workers from Shraddha Rehabilitation Foundation found Balabai wandering near Savarkar Nagar Chowk in Nagpur. She was rescued and brought into care. With psychiatric treatment, food and compassion, her condition gradually improved. Piece by piece, memories returned.
Eventually, so did the name of her village. Then her family's identity. When Shraddha contacted her family, disbelief quickly gave way to tears.
For Denit Mathew, Trustee of Shraddha Rehabilitation Foundation, Bala's story mirrors hundreds of others. "People usually see only the reunion. They don't see the weeks of searching, the police coordination, the railway enquiries, the psychiatric treatment or the painstaking effort to identify someone who may not even remember their own name. Behind every rescue is a family waiting, hoping and praying that their loved one will return," he says. The figure of 805 is not just an organisation milestone for him, "It's not just a statistic. It represents 805 homes where hope was restored. Watching families embrace after months or years of separation is what keeps our team going," he adds.
Dr Swarali Kondwilkar on how families struggle with the decision of when to stop the search
His colleague, psychiatrist Dr Swarali Kondwilkar, describes this emotional limbo as one of the most painful aspects of mental illness. "The hardest psychological question is: when does a family stop waiting for the return of a loved one who disappeared because of mental illness? And when does hope finally give way to closure?," she said.
Shraddha's work extends beyond rescuing people from the streets.
Every reunion sends a powerful message that mental illness is not a life sentence.
- It is treatable.
-âRecovery is possible.
- Families need not lose hope.
-âOne reunion video from Odisha has been viewed nearly two million times online, encouraging families to seek treatment rather than hide mental illness behind shame and silence.
Dr Bharat Vatwani, founder of Shraddha Rehabilitation Foundation, talks about the ethos behind the work
For Dr Bharat Vatwani, Founder of Shraddha Rehabilitation Foundation and recipient of the Ramon Magsaysay Award, these reunions are about much more than locating missing persons. "People often ask us how many people we have reunited. I believe the more important question is how many families have finally found closure," he says. The reunion he believes restores not just the missing person but also the family, "The entire family that has lived with uncertainty. Mental illness doesn't affect only the person suffering from it - it also scars parents, spouses, children, neighbours and, in many villages, entire communities," he adds.
Drawing on decades of experience rescuing wandering persons living with mental illness, Dr Vatwani says India's biggest challenge is stigma.
Their work in villages in India, he believes, gives people the hope that they too can find and support families who might be suffering from mental health issues. "Our work has taken us to hundreds of districts across India, many of them remote and underserved. We have seen firsthand how poverty, migration, lack of psychiatric care and stigma combine to create silent human tragedies," he says. "Every successful reunion tells society that mental illness is treatable, recovery is possible and no family should lose hope," he adds.
The geography of Shraddha's work reveals a crisis that stretches far beyond India's cities.
In the past year alone, the organisation reunited people with their families across districts in Bihar, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Telangana, Assam, Delhi, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.
"Our work across hundreds of districts has shown us that wandering persons living with mental illness are not an urban phenomenon. They are found in the smallest villages and remote districts where poverty, migration, stigma and the lack of psychiatric services often combine to create silent human tragedies. Every successful reunion chips away at the stigma surrounding mental illness," he says.
For Shital Gowardipe, 39, a homemaker from Chandrapur, the phone call from Shraddha Rehabilitation Foundation relieved her from purgatory
Shital Gowardipe, 39, whose 65-year-old mother, Balabai (name changed), had been living with mental illness for nearly 15 years, had gone missing on May 18 after boarding the wrong train despite having a reserved ticket to Bhusawal. "We searched everywhere. We approached railway police stations in Ballarshah and Chandrapur and were directed to Wardha railway police station, where we lodged a missing complaint. We checked CCTV footage and kept trying her mobile phone. The last location we got was Nagpur before the phone was switched off. We had almost run out of leads," Shital recalled.
The family, including her husband, 70, and daughters, one in Bhusawal and another settled in New Zealand and third in Chandrapur, had exhausted every possible avenue when Shraddha social worker Nilima Jangam contacted them.
"It felt as if a huge burden had been lifted from our hearts. We cannot thank the Shraddha team enough," Shital said. Her daughter, Sandhya, who lives in New Zealand, recalls: "On June 11, my father received a call from the Foundation informing us that they had found my mother in Nagpur and were bringing her home," she tells us. Now home, Balabai is back on medication. "Our priority now is to make sure she never goes through this again."
-Unlike death, disappearance offers no closure.
-Families do not know whether to mourn or to wait.
-Bedrooms remain untouched.
-Clothes stay folded in cupboards.
-Birthdays continue to be observed.
-Every unknown phone call brings a surge of hope.
Mental illness often turns this uncertainty into a prolonged emotional prison.
Many people living with untreated psychiatric illnesses leave home in a disturbed state, board the wrong bus or train, forget their identity and eventually become homeless, wandering from one town to another.
Their families continue searching- Sometimes for months, Sometimes for years or Sometimes for decades.
