Tattoo reunites Indian police commando with mom

An Indian police commando was reunited with his family after more than two decades when his mother identified a tattoo she had inscribed on his arm when he was a toddler, officials say.

Ganesh Dhangade, 28, deployed with an anti-terrorist unit in Thane, near Mumbai, grew up in an orphanage after he went missing 22 years ago at a railway station when he was 6 years old, said Shrikant Sonde, who heads Ganesh's department.

Sonde said his team launched efforts to find Ganesh's family in July and located them in early October. Ganesh only knew his mother's name - Manda R Dhangade - that had been tattooed on his arm.

"It was a beautiful moment. Mother and son had tears in their eyes and hugged each other. But neither of them had words to express their emotions," Sonde said.

During the past few months, police checked on missing person records and also started an online campaign, but in vain.

They later made inquiries at the orphanage where an old cafeteria worker said Ganesh had told him he came from a place near the "Mama Bhanja" hill, which police found near a tribal hamlet in Thane.

On October 4, the police found a family with the surname and inquired with a lady if she had lost her son. "She replied in the positive," Ganesh told the Mid-Day paper. "We asked if the child had any identification marks on his body, and she told us about the tattoo on the arms. That's when I showed it to her."

Manda, a widow, said getting her son back has given her a new lease of life. Ganesh now lives with his mother, two younger brothers and a sister.