The Hindu pilgrimage known as the Gangasagar Mela left an 80-year-old participant lost and alone at the end of the event this past January. She had become separated from the group she had traveled with from her home state. Unable to speak, she was eventually taken to the local police station where officers assumed she was ill and transported her to the district hospital.
That’s when another group - an amateur radio organisation known as the West Bengal Radio Club - was called in by police to solve the mystery of where she was from. The club’s members are widely known for their robust communications network which has assisted scores of displaced persons over the years. Using amateur radio and other means, the club circulated information about the woman - and sent her photograph to amateur clubs around the country. Within a few hours, the response came back that the woman was from the state of Uttar Pradesh and had traveled to the annual pilgrimage by train with a group from the district of Ballia. The hams learned that during the past two months, several people from Ballia had returned to West Bengal to look for her but without success.
The hams provided the missing pieces to the puzzle and according to Ambarish Nag Biswas, VU2JFA, secretary of the radio club, the police in her home district have since been directed by the local magistrate to bring her safely home.