A 22-year-old man was rescued by the Navi Mumbai police and social workers on Friday from the confines of his bedroom, where he was allegedly locked on the second floor of a duplex flat for the last 10 years. Battling the sunlight, clutching two polythene bags tightly to his chest, Raj Patel took baby steps as he stepped outside the 100-sq-foot room that has been his home for a decade. “Dada food” is all that he kept repeating, even after the rescuers offered him vada pav. The family of Raj, reportedly one among a businessman’s 10 children, lives in the lower floor of the duplex flat. According to Sharada Shah, president of local organisation Damini Sena which helped in the rescue, the family has been living in the deserted Sanjivini building in Belapur for the past 22 years. “There were some litigation issues with the building due to which other tenants moved out except this family. They continued to stay in the building without any water or electricity supply,” Shah told The Indian Express. [related-post] The Belapur police are investigating why Raj was kept in confinement while Shah claims that his step-mother and step-sisters wanted the boy to live separately. Once out, rescuers had to lure Raj into the ambulance using vada pav. All through the journey to Navi Mumbai’s DY Patil Hospital, Raj kept repeating: “Dada, food.” The family did not object to him being taken away. Raj is currently at the DY Patil Hospital. The Navi Mumbai police has decided not to press any criminal charge against the family for now. “At this point we are concentrating on providing psychiatric assistance to the youth and his family members. We will soon decide what sort of action needs to be taken against the family,” said a police officer. The rescue team said the room where Raj was kept was filled with garbage, newspapers and faeces. A patch of cushion was all that remained of a sofa that doubled up as his bed. When the team from Belapur police station visited his room, Raj reportedly peeped out of the grilled door. As the door was unlocked, a naked Raj emerged, trying to cover himself with a piece of gunny sack. “The place was stinking because of the faecal matter all around the room. Somehow we managed to get inside but Raj refused to step out. It was only when we gave him two bags of vada pav that Raj followed our instructions,” said Shah. “Nobody has ever bothered to walk up the nine floors and speak to the family. Even the watchman was scared to go up and complained about faeces being thrown from their window. After we learnt about the case we approached the local police and rescued him,” she added. Narrating the rescue, Shah said: “It was terrifying to walk upstairs. The passage next to the lift was filled with faecal matter. It was stinking but the worst was yet to come. When we saw Raj’s room we were shocked. The newspaper in which he was given food was used by him to cover his faeces.” She said the last time the boy stepped out was when he was a teenager. “He survived on a bare minimum supply of food and water. It looked like he had not taken a bath for the last 10 years.
