By Saibal Gupta

Kolkata, May 15 (IANS): In heartwarming news amid the gloom brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic, a 42-year-old man and his seven-month-old child were reunited with their family in Kolkata after a live streaming on Facebook showed them wondering aimlessly in the Bhowanipur area of the city.

The man, who was later identified as Anirban Mukherjee, had developed some mental complications and had walked out of his house in Kankurgachi in North Kolkata on Thursday morning.

"We got the information that a person was sitting on the pavement at Ward No. 70 in Bhawanipur. He had a little child with him who had no clothes on his body. The man identified himself as Joydeep Sen, and requested the passers-by to help him. I immediately reached the spot with the police and brought the child home. The child was crying out of hunger and my wife gave him food and clothing," said the Coordinator of Ward No 70, Ashim Basu.

According to Basu, there was no clue about the details of the man and the little child.

"We could understand that the man was from a well-to-do family, but he was not able to tell anything about his personal details. The details given by him were wrong and the police also didn't have any clue. So, we started streaming live on Facebook so that the family members could get in touch with us," Basu added.

Within an hour after Basu had circulated his contact number in the Facebook Live, he received a phone call from one of the child's family members. It was learnt that the person who had travelled to Bhowanipore is one Anirban Mukherjee, a resident of Kankurgachi, who works in the private sector. The child is his seven-month-old son, Dwijo.

It was further learnt Mukherjee had tested Covid positive on Thursday following which he started behaving in a strange manner. The family members found that Mukherjee was missing along with the child on Friday morning, and lodged a missing person case with the Phoolbagan police station.

"We immediately shifted Mukherjee to the SSKM hospital where he is undergoing treatment presently," Basu said.

Officials at the Bhawanipur police station got in touch with the family through their counterparts in Phoolbagan and on Friday evening, the family members along with the mother of the child turned up and took custody of the minor in the presence of the police.

They informed that Mukherjee might have travelled to Bhowanipore as he was well-acquainted with the area because he had done his schooling from Hartley's High School which is in that area.

"Mukherjee had tested positive on Thursday morning and after that he started speaking in an incoherent manner. He never had any mental disturbance before. So, we got in touch with the doctor and tried to put him under proper treatment, but before that he left the house with his child. We tried a lot to find him but he was missing. We also lodged a missing complaint at the Phoolbagan police station," said a family member of Mukherjee.

"My only intention was to return the child to the safe custody of his mother. Nowadays people are very active in social media and I was confident that showing the child along with his father in Facebook Live will surely help me communicate with his family," Basu said.