Shivam had gone missing during the devastating Kedarnath floods in 2013, which killed thousands of people. With no trace of him for days, his brother even went ahead and performed his symbolic last rites. But Shivam, who was living with polio, had survived and landed in Sambhajinagar (formerly Aurangabad) in Maharashtra, with no recollection of how he got there.

In 2021, the temple at which he was staying in Sambhajinagar was burgled and the robbers, who were subsequently arrested, dragged Shivam’s name into the case. The judge before whom he was produced ordered his rehabilitation at Pune ’s Regional Mental Hospital (RMH) for “disorganised schizophrenia”.

At the government-run mental hospital that currently has 1,037 inmates, a small detail about Shivam’s school in Roorkee triggered a

See Full Page