Mumbai police trace missing UP woman, 19, by trying number variants, reunite her with brother

Vanrai police in Mumbai, after calling several wrong numbers, finally found the right person and reunited a missing 19-year-old woman from Uttar Pradesh with her family. The woman was found wandering alone in Goregaon East at about 3 am on November 2. She could not recall her family's phone number correctly.

Police made repeated calls, combining the digits of the mobile number she gave in different ways. One call finally connected to her brother. He came to Mumbai and, after verification, the woman was handed over to him on November 4.

During night patrol in the Kamal Estate area of Goregaon East, woman police constable Devkar noticed the woman. She was frightened and crying. Devkar gave her water, comforted her and slowly won her trust. The woman gave her name as Ushadevi Baddu Raidas. She said she was from Uttar Pradesh, was 19 years old and had come to Mumbai, but had no relatives here and nowhere to stay.

Police Inspector Subhashchandra Poschar then reached the spot with the Mobile-2 team. Nobody in the area recognised her, so she was taken to Vanrai police station. Sub-Inspector Pharande spoke to her there. On learning that she was hungry, police arranged food for her.

The woman remembered one mobile number, but calls to it did not reach her family. Police then tried different combinations of the digits she recalled and made more than a dozen calls through the night. A police officer said, "One of our officers noticed that the last digit of one mobile number was 6. We put 9 in its place and called again. This time the person who answered was the girl's brother, Kusmesh Kumar Baddu."

The brother confirmed her identity and told police she had been missing since October 28. A missing-person report had been filed on October 29 at Tambaur police station in Sitapur district, Uttar Pradesh, under missing register number 26/2026. He then set out for Mumbai to take her home.

As her family had not yet reached Mumbai, police arranged for the woman to stay at the Sakhi One Stop Centre at Jogeshwari Trauma Care Hospital. The brother arrived on November 4. Sub-Inspector Jadhav checked the missing-person record and confirmed the relationship between the two using an Aadhaar card and other documents. Ushadevi was then handed over to her brother.

The team involved Police Inspector Subhashchandra Poschar, Sub-Inspectors Pharande and Jadhav, woman police constable Devkar and police constable Sawant. It worked under the guidance of Gajanan Rajmane, DCP, Zone 3, North Region, and Vanrai Senior Inspector Abdul Rauf Shaikh.

The sequence of events: Ushadevi is said to have gone missing in Uttar Pradesh on October 28. On October 29 her family filed a missing-person report at Tambaur police station in Sitapur. At about 3 am on November 2, Vanrai police found her wandering in Goregaon East. Through the night police kept calling, changing digits of the number she recalled. On November 4 her brother reached Mumbai, police verified his identity and the two were reunited.