Abandoned, with severed arm, Bihar teen says his first time away from home also his last

A year after he was discovered staggering along Taudu Road near Nuh in Haryana with his left arm severed below the elbow, bleeding and allegedly deserted by his employer, a 16-year-old teen is set to get Rs 10 lakh as compensation.

Recently, the Haryana State Human Rights Commission, that took suo motu cognizance of the matter, awarded the teenager the relief, saying: “The victim‑child has suffered not only physical injury but mental agony.”

Back in his village in Kishanganj district of Bihar, the family says, the 16-year-old has begun adjusting to life with his disability, helping look after their two-three goats and a cow.

The 16-year-old is one of six siblings, aged between 15 and 26, with their father, 48, a daily wage labourer. The latter worries that the compensation will barely cover the cost of an artificial limb. “What we really need is enough money to buy a buffalo so that we can have a regular income,” he says over the phone.

He is also unsure how to go about procuring the artificial limb for the 16-year-old. “An official at an orphanage in Patna told us it would have to be imported,” the father says, impressed that such a limb may help the teenager “lift around 10 kg”.

The 16-year-old had left home in early May 2025 along with 10 others to work on a road construction project in Kangra, Himachal Pradesh. Every year, 200-300 people from their village alone travel to North India for work, the father says.

For the 16-year-old, it was his first time so far from home. A contractor offered an advance of Rs 2,000, and he left, without informing the family as he wanted to “earn some money” and was apprehensive they may not let him leave.

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But it wasn’t easy living on his own, he discovered. “One day at the construction site, hot tar fell on my body. I didn’t tell my mother as I didn’t want her to worry.”

However, the 16-year-old adds, she sensed something was amiss. So, less than a month later, his father reached Kangra along with his elder brother to get him.

On May 27, 2025, the three of them boarded the general coach of the Farakka Express that runs from Delhi to Malda. When the train chugged into the Bahardurgarh Railway Station in Haryana in the evening, they got off to get some food – and the teenager got left behind.

As it got dark, the scared 16-year-old was approached by a local, Anil Kumar, who offered help. Instead, Anil took him to his dairy and put him to work, allegedly beating him when he resisted and denying him any contact with his family.

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Two months later, on July 27 evening, as the 16-year-old was cutting fodder, his left arm got caught in a chaff‑cutter machine and was severed below the elbow into many small pieces. His first reaction was to “look for my arm”, says the teenager. “But I could not find it.”

In their notings, the authorities recorded that Anil only gave the teenager some medicines at home. “Fearing police, he abandoned him between Rasulpur and Baroli villages near Hasanpur, giving him Rs 10,000 and promising more later,” wrote Additional Chief Secretary Sudhir Rajpal.

That was the only money Anil gave him for his two months of work at his dairy, the 16-year-old says. “I wandered the roads for a day and two nights with my amputated hand. A rehri wala gave me food… In the morning, a schoolteacher found me.”

Arvind, who belongs to Rewari, told police he spotted the 16-year-old at 8 am on July 29, dressed only in his undergarments. After the bandage that Anil had tied around the wound bled through, the teenager tore up his shirt to use as a dressing.

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The teacher, who took him to the Sadar Police Station in Nuh, told police that when he asked the 16-year-old where he was headed, he just said, “Bihar”.

Police took the teenager to hospital and it was after two unsuccessful surgical interventions that PGIMS Rohtak managed to stabilise the 16-year-old’s wound.

Meanwhile, the family had been searching frantically for the teenager, putting up posters at several places across Haryana.

The breakthrough came when the 16-year-old reached the Nuh Police Station, and told police the name of his native village in Bihar. His eldest brother, who has studied the most in the family, up to Intermediate level, was in Kaithal at the time, for the paddy transplantation season. “I received a call from home informing me to rush to the Nuh police station,” the brother recalls, talking about his shock at seeing the 16-year-old’s state.

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The hunt for Anil then would take four more months.

All the 16-year-old could tell police was that he was kept at ‘Anil Dairy’, and the names of Anil’s children. IPS officer Nitika Gahlaut says they searched more than 250 villages across Delhi, Noida, Ghaziabad, Palwal and Faridabad. Three Special Investigation Teams were deployed, with officials visiting villages and making video calls to the teenager to see if he could identify something.

A tip-off from a village sarpanch took them to Greater Gautam Buddha Nagar in Uttar Pradesh.

Finally, on December 30, 2025, Anil was arrested. His bail applications have since been rejected thrice, including by the High Court.

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The 16-year-old, who only studied till Class 5, talks about his limited options, but how he “doesn’t want to go anywhere for work anymore”. His father and one of his younger brothers are again in Haryana, for another season for paddy transplantation. Maybe, if he gets help, he can open a clothes or a kirana store, he says.