Is this a real-life Taken? Indian father turns beggar, almost dies rescuing kidnapped sons
A father will do anything to ensure his children's safety - even if he has to become a beggar.
Here is the story of Jagram, an Indian man from Uttar Pradesh.
(Spoiler alert: If you've watched the Liam Neeson movie Taken, you'll know how things turn out)
Jagram was living in another town when he heard that his three boys were missing. Returning to his village, he decided to spare no expense to search for them.
A non-governmental organisation gave the heartbroken man a tip-off.
Child traffickers had kidnapped his children, Amrit Lal, 15, Nakshed, 13, and Akhilesh, 10, and brought them to Nepal.
He was determined his flesh and blood would not be another statistic - Reports estimate that thousands of children are trafficked in India every year to work as labourers in inhuman conditions.
A child labourer. File photo: Reuters
Trekked to Nepal to find children
So Jagram mortgaged his farmland and began his 500km trek - on foot - to Kathmandu.
That's the distance from Singapore to Pahang, Malaysia.
Along the way, he disguised himself as a beggar, worked as a cleaner and cleaned vehicles to get more information on the gangs.
Twenty days later, he finally found his sons. They were forced to work from 3am to 5pm every day at a brick-making unit near Kathmandu.
There was no time for rest and barely enough to survive from just two meals daily.
The escape
To outwit the tight security, he worked as a factory labourer while planning his children's escape.
He also noticed four more children from his village while there.
When security was lax one night, Jagram took off with the seven children but the kidnappers gave chase. The escapees hid in a field and took a bus the next morning to a border town.
But the traffickers caught them at the bus station and brutally beat them.
Jagram's pleas for them to let him go fell on deaf ears. When he was finally freed, he went to a police station. Cops eventually caught the gang and rescued the children.
Jagram, who now runs a shop in his village, said: "I dreamt of educating my children and giving them a better life."
Source: The Hindustan Times
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