For 26 years, Prashanta and Santona Dutta of Habra in North 24 Parganas carried the unbearable weight of their only son’s disappearance. Tarun Dutta had left home in the late 1990s after his paddy business collapsed, leaving behind crippling debts and a sense of shame too heavy to face. Without a single word, he vanished, forcing his parents to sell their land and home to repay creditors while living in constant uncertainty about whether he was even alive.

With their daughters married and settled elsewhere, the elderly couple maintained one small ritual: every year, when updating voter forms, Prashanta would quietly fill Tarun’s details alongside theirs, refusing to let his name be erased from the family record.

That quiet act of hope paid off on November 29, 2025. During the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR), booth-level officer Tapan Dhar noticed something extraordinary while uploading data: Tarun’s name, submitted decades ago in Habra, now matched an active entry in distant West Midnapore — personally updated by Tarun himself, who had built a new life with a wife and children.

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Through swift coordination between the two BLOs, phone numbers were exchanged. The first call came from Tarun’s son asking for “Dadur bari” (grandfather’s house). When Prashanta heard his son’s voice after 26 years, both ends of the line dissolved into tears. Santona took the phone, trembling, as Tarun kept repeating “Maa” in disbelief.

Video calls followed with his sisters, and the family reassured Tarun that every debt had been settled long ago. “Come home, there is nothing left to fear,” they told him. For a process mired in political controversy, the SIR became the miracle that ended a quarter-century of heartbreak. “Now we can die without regrets,” said Prashanta and Santona, their faces finally lit with joy instead of sorrow.

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