17-year search for missing brother leads jail official to Surat undertrial

In 2006, Bharatbhai Patel alias Bharat Chaudhary, a resident of Golvi village in Diyodar taluka of Banaskantha, left his house as a 15-year-old. He had failed his Board exams and his parents had given him a tongue-lashing. Bharat, the eldest of five siblings, came down to Surat and started working in a diamond unit, cutting off all contacts with his family, who had by then given up hopes of ever reuniting with him.

Talking to The Indian Express, Surat Jail Superintendent J M Desai said, “Bharat left his house in 2006 when he was around 15 years old and came to Surat, where he started working in a diamond unit. He later moved to Ahmedabad, where he started working first as a helper in a luxury bus and later as the driver of the bus.”

Sometime in 2021, Bharat was driving on NH-48, returning from Jalgaon in Maharashtra, when the Surat Rural Police, acting on a tip-off, waved down his bus at Kamrej and recovered 55 gm of ganja from him. He was booked under sections of the Narcotic Drug and Psychotropic Substance Act and sent to judicial custody in Surat Central Jail.

Desai said that while in Ahmedabad, Bharat got married and the couple now have a six-year-old daughter. “All this while, for over 17 years, Bharat never contacted his family in Banaskantha,” he said.

Meanwhile, Bharat’s younger brother Dashrat Patel completed his graduation and joined the State Prison Department in 2017. A couple of years ago, he was posted as a sepoy in Ahmedabad’s Sabarmati jail.

Dashrat Patel said, “For many years, we searched for Bharatbhai in Ahmedabad, Surat, Saurashtra… everywhere, but failed. But it was a wound that never healed. Some days ago, during a conversation with my colleagues, I brought up my brother’s case and one of them suggested that I look for Bharatbhai on the e-prison portal… just in case he is lodged in some jail. I immediately went to our jail office and checked the portal.”

The search threw up a result: Bharatbhai Ekmabhai Patel, a 32-year-old undertrial prisoner lodged at Surat Central Jail, Lajpore. “I checked the details of the prisoner and found that everything matched – the name of our village, taluka and district. I immediately got in touch with my friends at Surat Central Jail and they confirmed that the prisoner was indeed my elder brother Bharatbhai.”

A few days ago, Dashrat reached Surat Jail with his father, uncle and cousins for an emotional reunion with Bharat. “My mother could not come due to her ill health. We all cried a lot. Some of the jail officials too were emotional. Bharatbhai said he should have come back home much earlier,” said Dashrat.

“He told us about his wife and daughter. He also told me not to try and meet them till he gets out on bail. When we did a video call with our mother Rukmaben and sisters, Bharatbhai started crying loudly.”

Bharat’s lawyer K D Sheladiya said, “After the Surat sessions court denied our bail application, we have applied for it in the High Court. The hearing will be held in the next few days.”

Gujarat’s e-prison portal, which Dashrat used to track down his brother, is an exhaustive database of prisoners, with photos, present and permanent addresses of the prisoner, past offences, and medical illnesses or diseases, if any, among other details.

Additional Director General of Police State Prison head Dr. KLN Rao said that after an evaluation by the Ministry of Home Affairs of all prisons in India, Gujarat was placed first in the “e-prison ICJS prison module”. “This shows the consistent hard work and dedication by Team Gujarat Prisons over the last four years,” he said.