Nil Bahadur, who arrived in Delhi on Kartik 16 for visa facilitation, has not been in contact with anyone since the next day.
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Foreign employment was not new to Nil Bahadur Tamang, who had been making a living by organizing fairs at home lately.
No one thought that when he left for abroad again after traveling to India and Malaysia, his family would have to face this situation. However, today, a 74-year-old father and a two-and-a-half-year-old son are waiting for him at home in a small house in Dordi Rural Municipality-9. There is only one question in everyone's eyes - where is Nil Bahadur?
41-year-old Nil Bahadur was preparing to go to Turkey because he had no fixed source of income. The process started from Kathmandu through a village acquaintance, Shri Prasad Gurung. After receiving the contact paper, the manpower sent him to New Delhi, India for Visa Facilitation (VFS). On the morning of Kartik 17, a group of 11 people paid 21,000 Indian rupees each for the VFS and returned to Nepal. But Nil Bahadur was not the only one who returned.
He left home on Kartik 14. On a rainy day, Mrs. Maitimaya Tamang remembers that the agent called him saying, 'We have to go to Delhi and pay the money.' ‘He spoke well on the way,’ she says, cuddling her two-and-a-half-year-old son Sahil in her arms, ‘I received a call on the evening of the 15th saying that he had reached Raxaul, but after that there was no contact.’
Nil Bahadur was not alone in Delhi. Bikash Gurung of Baganha, Sundarbazar Municipality-9, Lamjung, and Moti Prasad Gurung of Phulbari were also with him. On the night of Kartik 16, they stayed at Hotel Ashok in Paharganj.
The next morning, they went together to do the VFS. The process was also done together. But on the way back, Nil Bahadur got lost in the crowd and hurry. ‘While leaving the gate, he suddenly left,’ Moti Prasad recalls, ‘We searched for about 45 minutes, but he was not found.’ According to him, Nil Bahadur seemed a little scared. He kept looking around, saying ‘the police have come’. He had 3,500 Indian rupees and 2,500 Nepali rupees with him. The bank passbook, checks, national identity card and bag with clothes were all left at the hotel where he was staying.
A month passed, he did not return to the hotel, nor to the village. After sending a video of the bag left at the hotel and the items inside, people started crying at home, saying that he must have disappeared. After hearing the news, 69-year-old mother Aitu Tamang could not hold back her tears. ‘I wish I had stayed in the village and worked and ate,’ she says, caressing a photo of her son, ‘Where is my son? I have to find him.’
Nil Bahadur is Aitu’s step-son. The elder is in the village, the younger is in Saudi Arabia. When his wife Maitimaya arrived in Besisahar with her son Sahil by the arm, she had her husband’s photo in the bag and unbearable worries in her heart. ‘How will I raise my youngest child now?’ she asks, wiping away tears.
The family's son-in-law Krishna Bahadur Tamang has come forward to help the family. Khemjang Gurung from the village has also helped. Their daily routine is spent collecting information. Agent Shri Prasad Gurung is also in trouble. 'I brought 50,000 from home, but I sent an extra 4,000 because it would not be enough,' he says. He says that the lack of news about Nil Bahadur as the other people's flight to Turkey was approaching shocked everyone.
