By Shah Fakhruzzaman

HABIGANJ, Dec 25, 2021 (BSS) - Hasna Banu went missing at the age of eight in July 2008.

She was detached unfortunately from her parents from Rangamati in Chittagong.

Due to the blessings of the National Database and the relentless efforts of some government officials, she can be reunited with her parents after long 13 years.

Bangladesh Jatiya Tathya Batayan or Bangladesh National Portal is an integrated form of web portals of more than 51,500 government offices under the a2i of the Cabinet Division and the ICT Division with the support from the UNDP to ensure the people's rights to access information and services provided by different divisions, departments and ministries.

It aims to provide information about all unions, upazilas, districts and divisions of the country. It was launched on 7 March 2015 as a web portal containing 25,043 sites of government bodies in various tiers.

The reunion of Banu and her parents after a long 13-year gap made them very emotional, Chunarughat Upazila Nirbahi Officer (UNO) Satyajit Ray told BSS.
Hailed from Matbaria in Pirojpur district, Banu's family went to Rangamati in quest of changing their fate, he mentioned.

But, Banu's family lost her dear daughter on the sidelines of their chase after switching fortune.

Soon after the missing, a kind-hearted person of Raozan found Banu. Later he handed over the child Banu to Mahbubul Hasan, the then Assistant General Manager, Eastern Refinery, Chattogram on 12 August 2006. Subsequently, he looked after Hasna Banu introducing her everywhere as his own daughter, the UNO added.

Mahbubul Hasan went on retirement from the job in 2019. Later, he took the initiatives to marry off Banu. Then, the girl's real parents were found out.

Her parents were identified while preparing the birth registration certificate and national identity (NID) card required to complete the marriage registration process.

Hasan's elder brother Prof Dr Md Mozaffar Hossain, a Chittagong University professor of forestry department, advised him to consult the issue with the UNO concerned.

"Little Hasna Banu, who went missing at the age of eight, could not remember anything except the names of her father and mother . . . It was almost impossible to find her parents among the billions of people in Bangladesh with just two names," Ray said.

In this case, the UNO is assisted by Bedarul Islam, Upazila Election Officer (UEO) of Teknaf, a junior to his university. He was asked to make an effective effort to trace Banu's parents from the national database.

Bedarul searched the names of Banu's parents through the national database and tried to find the desired family out of hundreds of names.

He followed the 'trial and error method' to identify Hasna Banu's parents from a huge database.

"Banu's father and mother names matched 800-900 people. Then, from the matching list, 30/40 names were found as husband and wife by parent's name.

Later, the real parent was found out after scrutinizing those names," the UNO Ray said.

At first, it was possible to identify two sisters in Mainimukh area of Langadu Upazila of Rangamati, whose parents' names matched the particulars given by Hasna Banu, he added.

Based on this, he collected the information of the family with the help of Langadu's UNO Moinul Abedin Masud and confirmed that one of their daughters was missing from Raozan 13 years back.

Being confirmed about Hasna Banu's family, now residing at Langadu, Mahbubul Hasan visited the UNO office the next day and connected Hasna Banu's father Mojibur Rahman and mother Farida Begum in a video call.

Banu's patron Mahbubul Hasan, Professor Dr Md Mozaffar Hossain, UNO Langadu Moinul Abedin Masud, UNO Bahubal Snigdha Talukder, Teknaf UEO Bedarul Islam were connected to the video call.

Hasna Banu's parents broke down in tears after finding their missing daughter back after 13 long years.

Tears also rolled down in Hasna Banu's eyes. Seeing their emotional reunion, everyone else connected with the video call became emotional too.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina announced the formation of 'Digital Bangladesh' in her party's election manifesto on 12 December 2008.

Since then, with the support of the Cabinet Division and UNDP, the ICT Department started working on the implementation of the Vision "Digital Bangladesh".

Hasna Banu returns to her parents after a long 13 years relying on the National Information Window's database. Hasna Banu's parents got back her beloved missing daughter thanks to just the Awami League government's Digital Bangladesh vision.

Chunarughat Upazila Executive Officer Satyajit Das Chowdhury said, "I never thought I will be able to do this.

This success has shown us new possibilities . . . If we work together, it will be possible to find out anything with minimum information."

Chowdhury termed the story of Banu's return more than a defeat of the fairy tale as well.

According to the a2i office, this information window is an integrated form of web portals of more than 51,500 government offices, including all the unions, upazilas, districts, divisions, departments and ministries of the country.

So far, 657 e-services and over 88 lakh social problems of government departments were solved through this Tathya Batayan.