KOLKATA: Bengal's special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls just produced an act of desperation with a strangely redemptive ending. Jagabandhu Mondal, missing for 28 years and long given up for dead by his family, returned to his native Bagdah village of North 24 Parganas Monday to reclaim his identity as a voter. His wife Supriya, left to fend for herself with two toddlers, recognised her husband's "thickset face" the moment he landed at their door. His father Bijoy confirmed it was indeed his runaway son. "The voice, too, was unmistakably his," said Supriya, caught in a whirlwind of emotions surrounding the man who vanished on a winter morning in Feb 1997. After efforts to trace him proved futile, the family had consulted an astrologer, who "confirmed" their worst fears.

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