Network of friends finds Maidan’s missing Muskaan

Kolkata: When Muskaan, the six-year-old mare, went missing from Maidan on August 14, it left Anwar Ali of Kidderpore absolutely distraught. After she could not be traced, a search party was mobilised through social media posts by rugby players at Maidan. The network of friends finally found the mare on August 21 at Howrah’s Pilkhana, 6km away from Maidan.A day later, Muskaan was back where she belonged and had brought smiles back on the faces of everyone who knew her.
On the afternoon of August 14, Ali had left Muskaan with her friends Roshni, Raja and Badal for a few hours to have lunch. Ali and his family own four horses and offer joyrides to visitors in the Maidan area.
“We were without any earning during the lockdown. I sold my motorcycle to feed the horses. The entire family is attached to the horses, particularly Muskaan. My sons Sanwar and Sahil were extremely upset when they learnt Muskaan had gone missing,” recounted Ali. Someone said he had seen a young boy riding away on a horse towards the Howrah Bridge. Ali went across the bridge and asked people, who lived in and around Howrah station, for four days without luck.
When he was about to give up hope, fitness trainer and Rugby player Sailen Tudu learnt about the missing mare. Tudu knew both Ali and Muskaan. A horse enthusiast himself, Tudu had photographed Muskaan on the Maidan before and posted one of the photos on Facebook, requesting help to locate her. “Within 24 hours I got a feedback from Nadeem Solanaki, one of our rugby players from Howrah, that he had spotted Muskaan on a road in Pilkahana,” Tudu told TOI. He went down to the spot with Ali and found that a teenager living on the pavement near Golabari police station had taken Muskaan. Cops were called in. Minister Lakshmi Ratan Shukla also stepped in to help return Muskaan to the owner.