Social media has once again proved itself a boon to humankind as it helped a Mumbai-based woman find out her missing mother, who landed in Pakistan after she moved to Dubai with an agent to work as a house help.
Yasmin Sheikh, a resident of Mumbai, revealed that her mother had gone to Dubai for working as a cook but never returned.
"I came to know about my mother after 20 years through a Pakistan-based social media account who had posted a video of hers," Yasmin Sheikh told ANI.
"She often used to go to Qatar for 2-4 years but this time she had gone with the help of an agent and after that, she never returned. We tried looking for her but all the efforts went in vain and we could not even file a complaint as lacked evidence," she added.
Sheikh further said that her mother, Hamida Banu (her mother) went to Dubai to work as a house help (cook) there and never even contacted the family afterwards.
"When we used to go to meet the agent to enquire about my mother's whereabouts, she (agent) used to say that my mother did not want to meet or talk to us and assured us that she was doing well. In the video, she has revealed that the agent had told her not to disclose the truth to anybody," Sheikh said.
"It was only after the video came and reached us that we came to know about her living in Pakistan, else we had no clue if she was in Dubai, Saudi or somewhere else" she added.
Disclosing the video that they came across, Banu's sister Shahida said that they could only recognize her after so many years when she took the correct names of her husband, and siblings, and disclosed her residence where she used to live before heading for Dubai.
Shahida also said that they tried their all to find her sister and contacted the agent who allegedly fled after some time, thus diminishing any ray of hope to meet her sister.
Sheikh's sister and daughter feel it a miracle to meet her after so many years and have urged the government to help bring her back as soon as possible.
